We'll try to catch up with yáll soon. In the meantime, if you would like to share a thought with Nicola, please leave a comment here or you can send her an e-mail to my blackberry at:
Inevitably, Maggie was climbing on the sleds so I took her down a couple times to see if she would enjoy it. Of course she loved it which was quite evident by her giggles all the way down the hill. The little monkey even walked all the way up the hill on her own just as happy as could be. (You can imagine how long of a walk that would be when your footprints are 4 to 5 inches long and your stride is pretty much heal-toe-heal-toe all the way up). Nevertheless, she was a trooper. 
Then came the, “…it seemed like a good idea at the time…” lapse in judgment. “Hey, Nic,” I said, out of breath, as I got back up to the top of the hill to see her, “…you wanna try? Why don’t you, me and Maggie all go together?” When we spoke about this very important moment of decision after the fact, even Nicki admitted that she really didn’t have any hesitation before hopping on a saying giddy-up!
(for a refresher on Newton’s 3 laws, feel free to follow the link to a fun, kid-friendly, education site http://teachertech.rice.edu/Participants/louviere/Newton/index.html)
So there we were, all loaded up. Nicki was in the back holding on to me in the middle and I was holding on to the all too innocent, naïve and trusting Maggie in the front. We were all smiles as we began our descent. Like a train pulling out of the station, we slowly began to move over the edge, “…Weeeeeeeeeeeeee,” squealed Nicki gleefully around 30 feet down the hill, “this is fun!”
Now I’m not sure whether it was the boom as we passed through the sound barrier (remember Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation), or if it was when we suddenly found ourselves traveling down the hill backwards, or if it was when Nicki’s squeeze on me caused my legs to start tingling, but I do remember thinking, “Ohhhhhhh Boy...this is not good!"
Dragging my heals I tried, in vain, to slow our super-sonic excursion as images of the “Crash of ’82” when I wrapped my brother Justin’s neck around a barbed-wire fence during another ill-fated crazy-carpet ride, flashed through my mind. And then it happened... In a Matrix-like, slow motion, frame by frame, endless bending of the space-time continuum, we began to roll into our inevitable crash.
The crash itself is still kind of foggy (I think I closed my eyes). All I know is both Nicola and Maggie disappeared in a plume of snow. I guess some form of instinct, in this particular situation, forced me to actually let go of Maggie in the early stages of the crash to avoid landing on top of her.
Nicola and I each plowed into the snow and came to the end of our respective tumbles quite quickly. Immediately we scanned around us for our Maggie who, to our nauseating horror, continued a NASCAR-like crash, tumble, barrel role right past us down the hill. “Ohhh…what have we done…” I scampered over to her, Nicola at my heals, “we’ve killed our precious little girl!!!”
Motionless and silent, Maggie came to rest on her back…face covered in snow, eyes closed, mouth wide open waiting for somebody to push the “un-pause” button to let the sounds of her screams out. Isn’t it funny how, in moments like these, all you, as a parent, want to hear is your child scream and cry.
Howl she did as we wiped the snow from her face and carefully checked out every inch of her before picking her up. Amazingly, she was unscathed by the crash and within a minute wanted to be put down so she could climb back up the hill.
With Maggie well on her way back to the summit and the two of us still somewhat in a daze, our thoughts immediately turned to our other child; the unknowing participant in this ill-fated ride who got to experience it all in the dark; kind-of like Disney’s Space Mountain roller coaster ride.
I would imagine the baby’s view of the whole experience as follows:
There’s baby… just chillin’ out in his/her room, sippin’ on Momma’s morning orange juice, feet crossed, hands back behind it’s head, listening to the Enya-like, slow soothing rhythm of Momma’s heart beat…about to call room service to order an early lunch… then… suddenly, the beat starts to quicken to a hard rock climactic anthem as the room starts to shake… there are muffled screams…and then…. BOOM… BANG… SQUISH… QUIRT… THUD… THUD… THUD… EEEEEAAAKKKK… “What the heck… where am I ??? What’s going on out th… Well would you look at that… I had my very first poop. Yeahhhhh me !!!”
Quite worried, all Nicki wanted was to feel the baby move so we packed Maggie up and went straight home. Upon entering the house, Nicki went straight to the kitchen and… well… basically started eating sugar.
Let’s just say…baby was completely fine with the exception of a massive hyper-active sugar induced hang-over.
Dumb…dumb…dumb & very lucky we are indeed. Everyone is fine and now I have yet another storey to exaggerate to Maggie and Baby 2 when we’re all sitting around the living room in 2029.
JRM 3/25/2009
P.S. Well this was post 6 of 7 on my "7 posts in 7 days"objective. Nicola's last day of work is just over a week away so I'll have to finish number 7 before then so she can pick up where she left off last summer. Thanks for stickin' with me.
This year Nic selected something a little girlier for Maggie to wear... yes our little skunk blossomed into a beautiful little butterfly.
After a couple hours at the mall we made stops at Papa & Grammie Clark's and Grandpa & Grandma Mooney's. Sadly (actually it was kind of funny) by the time we got to Grandpa & Grandma Mooney's Maggie was so tired that she just powered out on the floor.
Somehow throughout our evening we managed not to collect any candy but we sure did have fun. Hope you enjoy the pictues. 
