Tonight, I actually cooked dinner. I am trying to be better at planning -- I strive to do stuff like setting something out to thaw, so that I'm not scrounging around at the last minute, wondering why I didn't set something out the night before. I guess you could say my goal is just overall getting something on the table that resembles a meal. I used to be really good about cooking every night (because I enjoy cooking)...but something happened that makes me forgetful. That "something" very well could be the combination of working fulltime plus running after a cute toddler in my spare moments. I fall into bed at night without remembering to set the chicken out...and then I'm off & running in the morning, having also forgotten about that chicken. Oh well...

Back to tonight. I actually was cooking dinner. With meat that I had set out to thaw.

Nathan wasn't home yet, and I was making meatloaf (don't gag...I have an awesome recipe - this, coming from the girl who used to hate meatloaf). I was chopping up an onion for the recipe -- with my awesome big Rachel Ray-esque knife -- Iliya was watching me, and oops! There went my finger!

Well, it wasn't nearly that dramatic. It was more like - slip! big gash in the finger!

Which -- I don't know about you, but -- that is just not that much better for me.

I kept my cool, though - thought I might pass out at one point (it hurts -- not to mention the blood!), but I was able to breathe deeply and remain calm. I really couldn't look at it, so I didn't think I needed stitches, but didn't want to know for sure until Nathan got home. Unless I was bleeding out (and I was pretty sure I wasn't), I decided to just stay put. I wrapped my finger (middle finger on my left hand) in a wet paper towel and hightailed it to the bathroom, where we keep the bandaids. Iliya saw the bandaids and burst into tears -- I guess he has bad associations. For him, a bandaid = a shot.

So I wrapped my finger up nicely, and had to get back to finishing up the meatloaf. As I was putting the meatloaf in the oven, Nathan walked in the door. After our initial greetings, I told him what happened. He took me in the bedroom to look at the damage, and while the cut is fairly large, the knife had just sort of (this is gross) filleted the back of my finger. We decided that - since most of the bleeding had stopped, I didn't really need stitches (thank goodness!) He asked if I'd had a tetanus shot lately (I don't think so?) but I told him that my knife was clean. I just don't want to have a shot! We went through this a few weeks ago, when I did the same thing to my thumb (I still don't have feeling in a small part of my thumb ... I must've done some fairly good nerve damage).

Anyway, he asked me how I handled it, and I told him, "fine."

But on second thought, I wondered aloud, "what would I do in a true emergency? Suppose it were just me & Iliya, and I really cut my finger to the point of needing stitches?"

He replied, "well, I guess you could always call an ambulance, if you didn't think you could drive yourself 2 miles to the hospital. Or call J, our doctor-friend. But if you cut it, say, to the bone, you should probably -"

"If I cut my finger to the bone," I said interrupted vehemently, "I'll probably just pass out (like I'm about to do right now) and there won't be much anyone can do for me till you get home. Unless Iliya is old enough to call 911 for me."

It's a nice thought, isn't it?

Goodness, all the gory details these days... you're probably wondering if you've come to the right blog!

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In other news, we've been using the same bottle of bathwash since we got home from Russia. It was a gift from one of our showers -- it was a pretty big bottle, and it lasted 4 months! While Nathan was giving Iliya a bath tonight, he informed me that the bottle was empty, and would I please grab another bottle? Naturally, I was more than happy to do so...and in my search for more bodywash, I also found some bubble bath that someone had also given us.

Lately, Iliya has been re-enamored with playing in the bathtub. He recently went through a spell where he would cry, and not want to play...but then - with some help - we determined that through the whole "playtime," he was dreading the washing that came at the end. So we decided to try washing him at the beginning of the bathtime, so the worst part was over at the beginning...and he was free to play without dread for the rest of his time in the bath. It worked!

Not only does he enjoy playing, but he reaaallllly enjoys the water bubbles in the bath. He'll splash around, and then point to all the bubbles, saying "BUBBBBBLLLLLLES!" (on another note, he also ate some Cheerios in milk for breakfast this past weekend...and called the Cheerios his "bubbles," too).

So it seemed like the natural thing to fill his bathtub with bubblebath bubbles. He would love it, right? Welllllll...........

At first, he saw bubbles forming, he was really excited. But he quickly found that soap bubbles are sticky, and they do not pop like water bubbles. So he ended up standing in the middle of his bathtub, surrounded by fun bubbles, completely freaked out and screaming at the fact that he had bubbles on his hands and he couldn't shake them off.

Try as I might, I couldn't get him past being upset, to seeing that it only takes a little water to get the bubbles off. There were just too many, and he was way too upset by this new phenomenon.

Needless to say, we decided not to force the issue with him and we just ended bathtime right then.

So I guess tonight was a bit of a traumatic night. I know what traumatized me most...but I'm not sure which was worse for Iliya. The bandaids or the bubbles...

Wow, what a night.