Ribs, Razors, and Stitches

When my dad decided that Jared and I were close to marriage, he sat us down and gave us the "Marriage Talk".  (Notice that I said, "when my dad decided"....Jared and I had not even mentioned the word marriage yet.)  Anyhow, he gave us one piece of advice that I have to repeat to myself, it seems several times a day lately.  He told us that when we started to have children, finances would probably become a concern.  But he cautioned, "Never try to plan out children on a ledger sheet."  Financially, it will never make sense.  "Work hard, be careful, Pay Your Tithing.....THINGS WILL WORK OUT!" 

And what have we found in the first 10 years of marriage and 5 children....Things have worked out! 
Yet there I was again repeating that advice to myself yesterday as I sat in the emergency room.  You see, I believe that when a family is blessed with 5 BOYS (4 being little and 1 being big), the Lord must reserve extra financial blessing, simply to cover the price of STITCHES.

Yesterday Sam "decided" to fall from a 4 foot high beam onto a piece of metal, hitting JAW first.  We thought it was bad, but when the doctor opened the wound up for us and revealed over an inch of his jawbone....I had to sit down.   Three layers of stitches later, we knew that the tithing blessings had kicked in as there were no broken bones or teeth!  Sam was a TROOPER!  He sat very still for 30 minutes as the doctor sewed it up.  On the way home I asked Sam what he thought of the day.  He said, "It's been pretty good." :)

There has been a lot of moaning and groaning over pain in our house the past few weeks.  You see, Jared decided to break a few ribs playing basketball.  Then, he decided to ride the kid's Razor 360 and CRASH, giving his back a great deal of road rash!  I said to him, "Jared, tell me honestly, was your first reaction embarrassment as all the neighborhood kids were looking on....Because it should have been, the Razor is a 4 year old's toy!"  After these experiences, I guess he shouldn't be surprised when I call him at work and say, "Go get Sam (Gary, Joe, Daniel...pick a name), we are headed for the EMERGENCY ROOM!"