The Day of Mishaps

Sunday, April 21, 2008

Lola decided she wanted a pair of roller blades. That’s normal, I thought, as I secretly panicked thinking about her need for speed (as I was at that age) and what body parts she can fracture flying down a hill and wiping out on those things… deep breath… ok, let’s go to the sports store where they have gently used equipment.

She found a pair of roller hockey skates and insisted she was ok with them. “It’s ok, Mom, I’m very good!” she said as she demonstrated in the store that she was quite capable of skating and stopping. I was rather impressed, really, and so the skates were hers. We immediately went to the park so she could try them out. There is a park in the north Atlanta area called the Alpharetta Big Creek Greenway. I have always called it Snake Park. It is a lovely stretch of fairly flat, wonderfully wide sidewalk nestled in the woods. It is a joy to walk on, bike on, roller blade on and to Trikke on (pronounced ‘trike’, the Trikke is a really amazing piece of equipment that uses the same technique as roller blading but has handlebars and hand brakes just like a bicycle. It’s a bear to go uphill on, but a total high to go downhill on…I love it - -I think they are rather popular in California, but not so much here in Georgia.) The only drawback about this park is that in the spring the snakes that live in the wetlands surrounding the area occasionally slither up onto the sidewalk to get a bit of sun. Thus the name Snake Park. I personally have never been very afraid of snakes, but Lola is a little fearful. This particular day when we were skating (Lola) and walking (me) there was a rather large snake lying in the middle of the sidewalk basking in the sunshine. Lola managed to go around him without freaking out too much and I managed to get a photograph of him just as he decided there were too many spectators for his taste and leisurely wiggled off into the grass. I thought it would be fun for us to compare him to photos of snakes on the internet and see what kind he is.


Just after the snake sighting, Lola was skating beside me and not very fast at all, and suddenly down she went. I didn’t even have time to try to catch her. She landed on her hands and her rear end. With just a hint of tears in her eyes she got up and said, “I’m ok, Mama. Ow. No, I’m ok.” She had a scrape on her hand and a rather large scrape on – of all places – the back of her upper thigh. We went home and got her injuries cleaned up and she looked at me and said “I want tomorrow skate more, ok?” What a trooper! She is definitely wearing jeans the next time!


The phone rang later and it was Kimmi. She called to say she had broken her toe and needed to know what to do for a recovery plan. Since I had broken one of my toes a few years back, I advised her to buddy-tape the toe to the bigger one next to it and elevate her foot and use an ice pack on it. There’s really nothing a doctor can do for a break in one of the smaller toes except x-ray it and then tell you it’s broken. I checked the internet for further information and it said the same thing - - buddy tape, elevate and ice.