Bang your head, not

Yesterday morning I couldn't find my hat, my prized once red now rose Zinn Design/Build baseball cap, and then I remembered I had left it up by the tennis court. So I enlisted Graham to come with me, and I kicked a soccer ball and he brought with him the croquet mallet which has been his near constant companion here on the lake. And indeed, I found the hat where I suspected it would be, and then Graham had the bright idea to bang the soccer ball with the croquet mallet. Some bird was singing real nice, and we sat on the bench and listened. If we drank, it might have been a beer commercial moment.

Meanwhile, down at the house, Natalie excitedly got up from where she was sitting on the patio, whirled around and hit her head -- BOOOSH! Against a structural wooden column. Mary told me about this as Graham and I returned and as she, David S. , and Carol headed out to the grocery store.

Natalie's booboo seemed minimal, but then in 15 minutes she went and lay in her bed, claiming to be sleepy. Symptom 1. 15 minutes after that, she puked for the first time. David O., my family doctor on call, at that point in time said to get her to the emergency room, which I did, with 4 kids and one big bag of chips and a couple of frantic calls to the grocery store for support.

Anyhow, the doctor checked her out and gave her a CAT scan which was negative on both bleeding and cats, and we returned home after a three and a half hour round trip to the ER (which is really fast in my book).

But Natalie has been instructed to take it easy. Which is hard on vacation. And today it was hot as hell. Good for swimming. The doctor said she could swim, but "no splashing," and Natalie insists she can't swim without splashing a lot. So by the end of the day she's emotional toast, claiming her friends are excluding her by swimming and by everthing else they do. And at last she blows her top and kicks me as hard as she can which doesn't hurt me but would hurt kids, so I pick her up and bring her inside and give her a time out and yell at her loud, so she'll know I'm not kidding for once. And she's miserable, stubborn, kicking, crying, won't go out and play with friends. It's hard to be stubborn with a mild concussion on a hot day in July.