Last week could have gone better.

Last Thursday, I was upstairs putting away what seemed like four million loads of laundry (really it was only six) when Sara came meandering into her bedroom. I was standing facing her closet, hanging up some dresses when I heard a horrific CRASH.

I whipped around and saw that the top of her dresser had fallen off and Sara was crumpled on the ground beside it.

In what felt like super slow motion, I dove across the bed and over to Sara, terrified that the shelf had struck her on the head and that she was seriously injured. Right at the moment I reached her, she started to scream.

I checked her over for injuries, she was fine, just really frightened. And she should have been - this is the aftermath of the carnage:

All of this stuff was on her shelves. The back of the shelf unit is in the upper right corner of the picture.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, thanks for breaking the shelf's fall

Smashed mirror, smashed piggy bank, chipped bookshelf, but an okay Sara. I'll gladly take it. She was more upset about the loss of her piggy bank, which I guess is a good sign that she was truly okay. Unfortunately, this happened about 5 minutes before the bus came to pick her up for school, and while she still wanted to go, she was weepy and shaky as I walked her to the bus and explained to the bus driver why she was so upset.

After she left, I cleaned up the mess and triple vacuumed her room to make sure that all the shards from the broken mirror and piggy bank wouldn't find their way into her tender little feet.

And, I have to say, this scared the *insert word of choice here* out of me. That was really close to being something awful. Robert and I had fastened the shelf to her dresser with screws and a plastic hinge thing. What a rotten way to find out that it wasn't nearly strong enough. How lucky that only things were damaged.

::HUGE sigh of relief::

Saturday, a neighbor invited us to go swimming at our community pool, so we met them there at noon. Her kids are in the same classes as my kids at the base school, so everyone knew each other pretty well. We were having a great time. Tucker and I got into a squirt gun war and he made the mistake of being out of the water, which gave me a direct advantage with reloading. I had him backed into a corner, ready to surrender and admit that I, with my entire pool of ammunition, had soundly defeated him. Muahahahahahahahahahaaa!

Sara, eager to get in on that action, was hurrying over to help out her brother  - how I don't know since she wasn't carrying a bucket full of water or a loaded squirt gun - and she was running.

NO RUNNING!

But, just like no jumping on the couch and pick up your toys and about a million other things I say 100 times a day - every day - no one was listening. Unfortunately, Sara made the critical error of running from the concrete around the pool onto the tiled area that went into the community center. And.....

WHAM!

Her feet went out from under her and she hit hard. So hard, in fact, the the employee at the reception desk in the middle of the community center heard the hit and came running. Sara hit mostly on her arm/elbow but her head smacked the floor too. Luckily, AGAIN, she was okay. No bump on the back of her head, just a very tender spot and a very sore arm. Tucker was sobbing because he thought it was his fault since he had been running around playing water war with me and Sara was running to help him out when she fell. I tried to reassure Tucker that it wasn't it fault and I really hope it took, but he was pretty upset for a pretty good while. Sara spent the rest of our time at the pool sitting on my lap saying she was tired. I'm willing to bet she had a pretty awful headache too.

Man, that girl is one tough chick. She can take some serious lumps. Another example that comes to mind? When she was one, she decided to ride her tricycle down the patio steps. It did not end well for her beautiful face or the tricycle. We took the picture a couple days later.

It's hard to be a diva.