I had been sick all week, but was starting to feel better. I called Jason and he had a good laugh about it too. The guys have had a good time teasing him about our little fight and not making it skiing the next day! Maybe third time's the charm! :-)
I called Riley, who was already planning to babysit for us while we went out that night. We were planning on leaving first thing in the morning before the kids woke up and thought it might be easier for her to just spend the night. Riley has been babysitting for us for about three years. She knows the routine and always picks up after the kids while I am gone. It is not unusual for her to send me a text while I am out to ask if the dishes in my dishwasher are clean or dirty! Love her! The kids like her and she is really sweet with the baby, which is the most important thing to us.
Riley and Ashlyn
Sometimes when she comes, she asks if she can bring a friend. I don't mind as long as the kids are taken care of. Since Riley has gotten her drivers license, I see a lot more of her and her friends. There are three of them that are almost always together and recently one more was added to the group.
Emily, Riley and Melissa (missing Sami)
They are good girls with funny personalities. Sometimes, they stop by at lunch time to hang out and eat their food and a few times have stopped by randomly when they are out. This last year, I have gotten to know them pretty well. Sometimes, when Riley is out of town or has something else going, I'll call one of her friends to come babysit.
So, back to my story. Riley was babysitting Friday night with one her friends. Ashlyn went to bed at 8pm, the girls were spending the night at my mom's and Austin and his friend were playing video games. Riley asked if I cared if the other two girls came over and spent the night with her. I didn't care. I just told them not to stay up too late because they had to be ready to babysit in the morning.
We got home around 11:30pm on Friday night. We chatted with them for a little bit and went to bed. We woke up at 4:30am to two sobbing teenager! "Tara! Jason! Tara! Tara!" We sat up, a little confused, and saw them standing at the foot of our bed. There voices were high and scared as they cried, "There was an accident!"
I wasn't sure if I heard them right. "What? What happened? Are you okay?"
Their sobs were more intense as they repeated, "There was an accident! We were in a car accident!"
Downstairs and in the light, we saw Emily sitting on the couch covered in blood. She just kept asking what happened and saying she couldn't remember anything. Riley had blood on her face and arm, but I couldn't really tell where it was coming from.
A million things went through my mind at the same time. A car accident? What time is it again? What happened? Where were you? Really? This has to be a bad dream! Emily looked pretty bad. We needed to get her cleaned up and see how bad it was before we called her mom, which was followed by a chorus of tearful, "please don't call out parents!!!"
As I turned to get a wash cloth for Emily, I suddenly felt dizzy and recognized the familiar feeling of passing out. "Oh this is ridiculous!" I thought. "Seriously? I'm going to pass out?! Nice timing! UG!" I layed down on the floor to try to keep it from happening. Jason asked me where the first aid kit was. I started to sit up and felt the room getting dark around me. I quickly laid back down and thought I was going to throw up. "ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?!" I screamed in my head. This is awful timing!! These girls need me and I am stuck on the floor! I remembered that when this happened to me when Austin was getting his stitches, they gave me some orange juice and I felt better right away. I asked someone to grab me a drink and within a minute, I could get up. That was so lame!
Later that day, I was trying to figure out why that happened. I had been sick and I woke up quickly, but I don't think that was it. I don't think it was the blood. Blood has never bothered me. It finally dawned on me a few days ago why it may have happened. My body has always reacted really strongly to stress. When Austin split his chin open when he was 6, it was a bloody mess! I went into calm action mode, trying to keep him calm and stop the bleeding. I took him to the hospital to get him stitched up. After he had the shots to numb the area, I told him the stitches wouldn't hurt. He was really nervous and didn't want to have it done, but he trusted me and said he was ready. The needle went in from the bottom and it didn't hurt, but when it came out the top, he screamed. The doctor said for some reason the top didn't get numb and Austin was crying and I almost passed out. It wasn't the blood, it was the stress. He trusted me and I was wrong. I suppose that is good to know about myself, but what terrible timing!! Anybody know what I can do about that? It is really inconvenient!
Back to the crazy wake up call. The next several minutes were filled with several different stories, lots of "I'm so sorry"s, crying, stopping Emily's bleeding and cleaning her up enough to see that she had a two inch gash on her head that was definitely going to need stitches, figuring out that Riley's blood came from small cuts from the glass that had shattered and the discovery of boys! Yes, boys. As I was walking into my kitchen to get a clean rag for Emily's head, I noticed my front door was cracked open. I looked outside and saw one of the girls standing on the side walk talking to two boys! Uh-hu. "Hi... Why don't you guys come inside." Was this seriously happening?
One of the girls took this picture on her cell phone after Emily was cleaned up a little bit and we were getting clean rags and looking for the first aid kit. (Which I left in the RV after our last trip. Nice huh?)
One of the girls took this picture on her cell phone after Emily was cleaned up a little bit and we were getting clean rags and looking for the first aid kit. (Which I left in the RV after our last trip. Nice huh?) So, back in my living room at 5 something AM with 6 solemn faced teenagers and the "real" story about what happened (we were still not sure if we had the whole truth), we got the phone to call Emily's mom. I thought it would be best if she called. As a parent, I think it would be scary to hear that your child was in an accident from someone else. I knew she didn't know what happened, but she called just to tell her she was in an accident and she is okay, but needs to go to the hospital. I talked to her mom for a minute and made sure she knew where we lived. She said she would be right over. Everyone else seemed to be okay and the whole parent thing could wait at least until the until the sun came up.
I wanted to see the car to see how bad the accident was. The car belonged to one of the boys. He said he was driving and felt really bad. They were goofing off and lost control of the car and hit a tree. They didn't want to leave until they knew the girls were okay. As disappointed as I was in the situation, I was impressed with the boys taking so much responsibility and being willing to sit out in the cold for so long just to make sure the girls were okay. They were very apologetic to us and very respectful. It was clear to me that these were good kids and just made a stupid teenage mistake.
We walked out to the car and there was a police car with lights on behind it and an officer looking inside the car with a flashlight. As we approached him and the car, he looked up and became very aggressive! "Who's car is this?" he barked at us. He shined the light up and down the boys and me and realized we didn't look injured. "What happened!? Who is injured?! There is blood in the car! Who else was in the car? I need to see the person who is injured!" He was seriously freaking out!
I told the officer that the person that was injured was in my house and her mom was on her way to get her. Just then, Emily's mom came around the corner. The boys were answering questions and I went in to talk to Emily's mom. As Emily and her mom were getting in the car to go to the hospital, the police officer came running across the street! "You can't leave!! I need to talk to her!" Emily's mom said she just needed to get her daughter to the hospital. Emily didn't remember what happened and she wasn't driving, so they really needed to go.
The officer started to short circuit! He started shouting out numbers into his walkie that is attached to his shoulder and yelling at Emily's mom that he needs her drivers license and wanted to know what hospital they were going to and on and on! I think he had one too many cups of coffee or something.
Another police car came around the corner. I walked over and in my pajamas and awesome bedhead that sort hair does, introduced myself to the new police officer. I told him what had happened and added, "Look, these are good kids. They made a really stupid mistake and they are pretty shook up right now. They are not criminals and they are not trying to get away with anything. The other police officer is being really aggressive. Can you have him just tone it down a notch?" He was really nice and began questioning the boys about what happened.
One of the boys turned to me and said, "Um, I have a confession to make. You know how we told you we hit a tree? Well we did, but it was on the Buchanan campus. I'm sorry we didn't tell you before. Everyone was just really scared that you would guys would be really mad. We should have told you. I'm sorry."
Humm. Okay. How come these boys are more honest with me than my girls? My girls. I think of them as my girls. I feel protective of them and worry about them when they get in little spats with each other or aren't doing well in school. These are my girls that I trust. Who cares if they were on the Buchanan campus? Does that make it really any worse? I suppose it just makes things make a little more sense because something didn't feel right about the whole story. Maybe that was the missing piece. They had this wise idea to drive on the high school campus and got in an accident. Nobody was drinking or doing drugs or anything like that. Okay.
Two more police cars pulled up! Jason had come outside now that Emily was with her mom. "Clovis PD," I said to him with a smile. We love the town we live in and how safe it is. If any little thing happens, the police are all over it. I'm sure this was the most exciting thing that had happened in days.
The car was totalled and not drivable. I'm not sure how they got it back to my house. They boys said Emily just kept saying she wanted them to take her to Tara's house, so they came. I asked the boys if they wanted a ride home when they were done with the police. "It's okay, we can walk. We are really sorry again," they said. It was freezing outside and I wanted to make sure they made it home. I told them it was okay and we would take them home. The officer said they are 18, so when he was done they were free to go with me. I told them to come over when they were done and went back in to talk to the girls.
They were really shook up and looked really worried about Emily. It was after 6AM by now and the girls looked exhausted. Things had calmed down and it suddenly struck me as kind of funny that we weren't going skiing again. We had planned to go so many different times! Riley said she would be totally fine to babysit and I almost laughed. "I don't think so..." Oh well. I was exhausted and I knew that Ashlyn would be waking up in about an hour. "Why don't you guys get some sleep and we can talk about this more later."
Just then, the nice police offer knocked on the door. He said the boys called their parents and a tow truck was on the way. He just wanted to give us an update and let us know that they boys wouldn't need a ride home. We thanked him and he left. One of the boys came over and said he just wanted to apologize for everything and to say thank you for how we handled everything. I asked him how much trouble he thought he would be in. He said a ton, but he was just glad that nobody was hurt worse.
Jason and I went upstairs and got in bed. We laid there talking for a while. I was glad everyone was okay, but I was disappointed in the girls and I still felt like something was off with their story. They didn't want us to tell their parents. Where did we stand with that? Do I think their parents should know? If I was a parent, I would want to know, but what is more important? These girls trust us. I have told Riley before that if she ever finds herself in a situation she shouldn't be in, to call me and I will come and get her. I would rather that she knew she could trust me, so that I can help her, than have things be worse because she didn't know what to do and didn't feel like she could tell her parents. Where does this fall though? It was a car accident when she was supposed to be sleeping at my house! She betrayed our trust. What good would it do her to tell her parents? Jason made a good point that if we told her parents, we would be taking away from her the opportunity to do the right thing. She needs to be the one to tell them.
We stewed on this for a while and finally decided that it was better for Riley to know that she can trust us and give her the chance to make the right choice. If she didn't tell them, would it be the end of the world? Are there things that we have done that our parents never knew about? Of course. Would it have changed anything if they knew? No. I'm sure we would have gotten in trouble, but it wouldn't have changed anything. Change has to come from within. Do I think she would ever do this again? No, but will I check on her if she ever spends the night again? Absolutely, but I'm sure I will find her sound asleep. Will she make other mistakes? Probably, she is a teenager... and I would like it if she had someone to point her in the right direction. For some reason, it is always easier to listen someone who isn't your parent. Will her parents be mad at us for not telling them? Probably, but hopefully they will understand why. I was disappointed that they put me in this position, but it didn't change the way I feel about them. I still love them and they are my girls.
We fell asleep for a little bit before Ashlyn woke up. Jason knew I had been sick and offered to get up with her. What a sweetheart. I got up a little bit later and we had a missed call from our friends who we were supposed to go skiing with. Luckily we decided the night before to drive our own car. They were going up with their kids anyway, so we figured the alone time in the car would be nice. Their message said they were running a little late and had just left. I thought about calling my mom to see if she could watch Ashlyn, but the girls had just spent the night and I know how busy she is. I called Haley and told her I didn't think we were going to make it, but we would try to find a babysitter and would give her a call if it worked out.
We heard the girls up downstairs and went down to talk to them. Sami and Melissa had just left. Their parents had said they needed to be home by 10am. Riley said she was feeling fine, but she still looked worried. She said she was okay and wanted to babysit. Jason and I protested, but she insisted that she was okay and she really wanted to babysit. She felt bad for what happened and didn't want to ruin our day on top of what had already happened. We thought about it for a bit and decided that Ashlyn would go back down for a nap in about an hour and she could go back to sleep then. At that point, we weren't super excited about going skiing, but it was getting silly that we just couldn't make it up the mountain! I think Riley wasn't ready to see her parents anyway, so we figured if we went, it would give her a little more time to think about it.
We packed up our stuff and headed out, double checking that she was really okay. This is a crazy long post, so I will stop here. Part 2 coming soon!
1 comment:
sounds like you are still having a hard time trying to get in a good skiing trip. LOL maybe its just you and not me.
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