Another Accident

Well, Ben had a wipe out on his bike today. Apparently the training wheels let him down. Poor kid got pretty beat up. Could have been a lot worse though. Hopefully this will serve as a lesson to the kids (and our helper) about the importance of the use of bike helmets. There were several little cuts that could have probably used a stitch or two, but since they were all right together and going different directions seemed like stitches in one would just pull other ones wider. So we just cleaned it VERY well (that was fun!) and then put a big butterfly bandage (home-made) over the whole thing. It pulled all the cuts together nicely, and we are hopeful it will all heal well now. Please pray with us that it does not get infected!

He was so very brave for the whole thing; we were proud of him. We did bribe him with getting to watch cartoons (Go, Diego, Go!) while we worked on it.
So pathetic. Felt bad for him.

It kept oozing and bleeding so we put a cotton ball below it to absorb the drips. He is doing fine now, but I am guessing it will be sore tomorrow! Please pray with us that it does not get infected - a real danger here. Also, Steve and I take off on Saturday for a week of meetings on a nearby island. The kids will be staying with some friends/coworkers here in Lipa. Please remember all of us in prayer this next week. Pray that the kids do well with the separation, that our meetings are profitable, and that the family watching our kids (they have 2 kids of their own!) would not quickly regret the fact that they agreed to this. Please pray specifically that nothing develops with Ben's wound - especially while we are gone.

I Can Do It!

We now have another bonafide bike-rider in our family. Zach learned how to ride his 2-wheeler without training wheels this past week. He is having a blast, and is riding amazingly well - which is a good thing because the poor kid doesn't haven any brakes! Foot brakes are unheard-of here, and the hand brakes on little bikes are more for show - they don't really work because kids don't normally learn to ride a bike until much later if at all. But Zach is doing great anyhow - just dragging his feet then crashing into something when he needs to stop.

While both Steve and I have worked with him a little on this new skill, it was under Daddy's tutelage this past week that he had success. Zach has gotten very quick at it though - he and Steve raced yesterday, and even with Steve running at full-out, Zach won by a long shot.He is so very proud of his new ability, and he begs to go out and ride his bike MANY times a day. It is so good to see him enjoying it so much, and he is just too cute on that tiny little bike.

Play Time

This is what our living room normally looks like.

This is what it looked like tonight when the kids turned it into a giant fort, complete with multiple passageways, to keep them safe from the "lion" - Dad (with kneepads so he could crawl on the marble floors). Ben is under there somewhere...