January In Brief: aka, Eye Can't Even

Or, for some alternate titles of the cinematic kind:

Eyemageddon

Eyepoccolypse Now

The Corneal Games, Round 2.

Lethal Weapon.

Or simply, You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

But first, the more boring/tame stuff.

The start of January saw us rudely thrown back into our [new, even crazier] school and work routine after a nice visit with family. We had one jam-packed drill weekend to pull off a farewell for our Brigade Commander, followed by two separate weeks of star students (both of whom did an amazing job with their star student duties!), and some pretty fantastic Broncos games to keep us busy. January was also good month for getting meetings scheduled and events planned for the mom's at church that I've been helping a friend run. It's resulted in some great new connections. We've also had some nice little moments of family bonding, with a few notable ones initiated by Peter. He's started passing on his love of Calvin and Hobbes...and he recently introduced the kids to the now-infamous concept of Nerf Gun Wars.

Superbowl, here we come!

Now, over the years we've kind of just acquired things like foam pirate swords and plastic Ninja Turtle Nunchucks and light sabers. Somewhere along the line, the Nerf Guns started popping up. I'm not the biggest fan of toy weapons, and multiple times I've had to confiscate the swords after angsty boy fights and put the nunchucks in timeout after they broke a light switch. But with kids, minor damage just comes with the territory, and they've never actually done serious damage. So when Peter came home a few weeks ago brandishing three new Nerf toys, chirping "look what I found on sale!!" I simply groaned and rolled my eyes instead of putting them in a return bag. (I never did think to ask him what he was doing wandering through the toy aisle of Target that day, though, when we only needed milk). Soon, I even became a reluctantly enthusiastic participant of the family Nerf wars Peter started in our room whenever the kids got ready for bed with a few minutes to spare...setting up ambushes, hiding behind pillows, popping out from behind the bed for the perfect shot.

It was during one such evening, two weeks after New Year's, that Peter was supervising bedtime and I was determinedly packing away the nativity set in hopes that our living room would not spend a second full week after the Epiphany buried in all things Christmas. I didn't realize that another Nerf war was underway behind closed doors until Erik came running downstairs, whimpering and trying to re-load his gun. I helped him, then accompanied him back upstairs with the intent to cut the Nerf wars short in time for bed. We carefully ducked into the to the sound of laughter while Nerf darts whizzed everywhere. Sighing, I begrudgingly picked up a spare Nerf gun and joined the fun instead. All was fine for 10 minutes; so fine--and fun, apparently--that Peter decided it would be great to capture the fun on video. In it, you can see me attempting to wrestle the automatic Nerf gun away from Ethan while trying to remind him about muzzle awareness after he kept trying to fire at me from point blank range. (Oh the foreshadowing. And irony). About .5 seconds after Peter stopped filming, he charged over the bed and fired, just as I, unaware, started to turn my head toward him.

Yes, Peter was the culprit, not one of the kids. (He's admitted it to others so I can safely incriminate him here.)

I definitely didn't see the round coming, so I had zero reaction time to duck or even clamp my eyes shut--I simply found myself on the floor very suddenly, covering my left eye while writhing around and yodeling loudly and rather comically. 

But as funny as I sounded, let me tell you--the final pains of childbirth, though more prolonged, have got nothing on the intensity of a dart to the eye at close range. Nothing. Those little devils pack a brutal punch. Only after the feeling that I might simultaneously puke and pass out dissipated was I able to low crawl to the bathroom, and after about five excruciating minutes of deep breathing, painfully pry my eye open to confirm that I could still see. But it was blurry and my eye wouldn't stop watering and hurt like the Sam Hill Dickens...so I knew that I probably shouldn't try to sleep it off or wait it out. 

Being Saturday night, that meant the ER. Which meant reliving more memories of when I was seven and landed in the ER for an almost identical injury. 

I know, right? Like I said, so much irony. When the first incident happened, we lived at West Point, and it was graduation day. It was a tradition (and still is) for little kids to be able to run into the stadium to try and try to grab a cadet hat from the field following the legendary hat toss. While waiting in the holding area for the hat toss, one of my friends and I were playing innocently, holding hands and spinning around. Somehow, her free hand swung in the direction of my face and her fingernail scratched my eye. She was so apologetic, but seconds later the hat toss happened and everyone started running in all directions. And so I stumbled around the field in bleary-eyed pain in the middle of the chaos until I somehow found my dad in the throngs of people. I remember him holding me while I held my eye, talking to and congratulating his cadets until he realized how serious it was. So off to Keller Army Hospital we went (I was a frequent flyer of the Keller ER at that age)--only I didn't want my friend to get in trouble, so I told the adults that it happened when I was swinging my arm and caught myself in the eye instead of saying that it was her hand. Ah, the mind of a 7-year-old.

Anyway, 25 years later I faced a new challenge; though I was now an adult, I still couldn't drive myself to the ER. So I called our amazing friend and next door neighbor who agreed to come sit with the kids so Peter could take drive me. Even more ironic? The very same friend and I had been talking about eye woes earlier that afternoon, and I'd just told her the story of what happened when I was seven. Self-fulfilling prophesy, I suppose...

Somehow, we got the kids in bed and astoundingly, we were in and out of the (somewhat busy) ER in under an hour. I didn't even know that was humanly possible! They confirmed that there was a scratch on my cornea, prescribed some antibiotic ointment, and said it would be sore from the impact but should heal just fine within a week. It was still quite sore through mid-week, but now 10 days later, I'm thoroughly back to normal. I didn't even have to wear a pirate patch like I did when I was little! We heard plenty of entertaining Nerf stories from the ER staff and friends the rest of the week, along with recommendations to wear plastic glasses or ski goggles while warring. Which would've been a great thing to consider before getting my eye shot out. Hindsight, I guess (pun intended). But I still don't know if I'll ever be ready to un-ban Nerf guns from our home, since I can't even blame age or immaturity!

While probing my shot eye, the ER doc got
frustrated that I couldn't keep it open and
actually asked, "why do you keep blinking?"

I did let the real perpetrator take the blame this time, and thankfully he didn't get in trouble with anyone except his own guilty conscience. He spent the rest of the week buying flowers and trying to make it up to me, even though I did remind him that accidents happen. But I didn't actively discourage the groveling, either.

Epilogue:

Before the incident, Peter had booked us some tickets to the yearly Knights of Columbus Gala that our church holds. Whether through genuine thoughtfulness or a nagging feeling that he might need to redeem himself for some reason, Peter had decided to make it a little getaway; he said I should get myself a dress and he booked us a room at the hotel, arranging for the kids to stay overnight at his parents' house. So by the time the eye injury occurred, I at least had something to look forward to. (More puns. So many puns!).

I had a follow-up for my eye the day before the gala, confirming that I still had 20/20 vision (whew!) and clearing me to wear eye makeup again (double whew!). The event itself was loads of fun and I think we'll be frequenting it yearly from here on out; there was a charity auction to raise money for the poorest region in our state, as well as a lovely dinner and some dancing. 

One of the coolest auction items: this painting
of the very area we raised money for, painted
in real time by our incredibly talented friend.

Sadly we were outbidded for the handcrafted custom-order farmhouse table we had our eyes on (one of our friends/parish members does some jaw-dropping work, including the beautiful wooden kayaks used at our church campouts, and the table up for bid was very similar to amazing one by Clint from Fixer Upper). But we did score some symphony tickets to thank Peter's parents for all that they do. And the table-making friend told us we could always commission him for our own project if we ever want to. I all I had to do was give Peter a puppy dog look and point woefully to my eye to seal the deal... (just kidding. But who can honestly turn down the chance for a custom table?).

Overall, it was a great night, and the perfect way to close out January--eyesores and all.

Wink.

All's well that ends well!