community garden and fainting children

I've done a lot of gardening over the years. However, the awkward nature of the space I use at home and the desire to try different crops caused me to jump at the chance to join a community garden with a friend. The plot is something like 45' X 25'. The city plows it in the spring and fall and water is included in the rental price of fifty dollars for the year (what a deal!!)

On Tuesday, I went to the garden and fenced my plot. Yesterday, I harrowed it and planted most of my plants. Today, my hands hurt like someone has been beating them with a stick. Sigh.

My plot is plot number 41, my friend has the plot just in front of mine. I am very excited about this little garden. K is too and was a good helper yesterday. The little white piles you see are crushed eggshell around the tomatoes I set out. Crushed egg shells are the one thing that I've found that prevent cutworms from cutting them to the ground (one year, I had to replace a row of plants at least three times).

The girl you see here gave me a good scare on Tuesday night. It happened while we were in the backyard waiting for the dogs to 'Do Their Duty.' To give you an idea about context let me tell you what 'Do Your Duty' entails, we have a small area covered with woodchips where we have always trained our dogs to go to the bathroom. Think doggie litterbox. In the past, training has been simple and we trained on leash. However, after tremendous frustration on the part of almost every single member of our six-member family, I fenced it last week.

Kei has it all figured out and is pretty good about doing what is expected of him. Yuuko has it figured out but isn't as interested  (or wasn't interested - we had a very interesting break through yesterday) in doing what is expected.

We often sit in lawn chairs while we wait. Typically, we write or draw. K had finished her letter to her pen pal. She had gotten bored and had wandered off. Suddenly she comes up to me and lays her head on my shoulder and asks me, "Is it broke?" Questions and statements with no context are part of K's m.o. Consequently, I have no idea what she is talking about. I wonder if she is hot and thinks she has a fever so I check her head and it is fine. I ask her what she means.

She says "I feel funny. Is it broke?"

"What feels funny?"

She is incoherent and faints but is up within five to ten seconds. I put her in the lawn chair and she starts wretching but is unable to bring anything up. After two or three bouts of dry heaves, she says she feels better.

Then she tells me that she was trying to practice a trick by standing on a ball and that she fell.

Suspecting a concussion, I take her to Urgent Care, where a nurse triages her and then sends us to the Emergency Room.

By the time we arrive at Mercy, you would never have guessed that anything had happened to her. She keeps running off and playing. When we see a doctor he checks her neurological function and her neck. He says she is fine but since I didn't actually see what happened, we should wake her up every four hours in the night.


It is a strange thing to see your child's eyes roll up in her head, to see her sway like grass in the wind, and then collapse. When she began wretching, I wondered if she had somehow gotten into the ant bait in the laundry room for our ant infestation (another fascinating trial in my life).

She is perfectly fine. She got to bed very late that night and so the task of waking her up every four hours was easy - it happened once, at two a.m. And, since my husband usually doesn't come to bed until four or five, I didn't have to do it.  For which, I am truly thankful.

Apart from being exceptionally affectionate, K was perfectly fine and loving yesterday.