Lessons

The past few days have given everyone in our house a chance to learn some new lessons and reflect on those learned in the past.

Sunday night Ella was in the bathroom as she had just gotten out of the shower.  I was cleaning up dinner and Brandon was playing with the boys.  All of the sudden a scream from the bathroom.  We didn't respond because Ella is a girl and a screamer - she is always screaming "just because."  But then another scream, just as intense, so I dropped everything and ran.  She was holding her hand out; two fingers and her thumb had streaks of something brown, I assumed dirt or some other (more disgusting) substance.  After what seemed like minutes, but in reality about 30 seconds, I realized she had shocked and burned herself.  The wall around the electrical outlet was black.  She led us to believe that she had simply touched it while she was still wet and that did the job.  After some prying (and finding a mangled bobby pin near the sink) she confessed to sticking the pin in one of the holes.  This left 3 burns on her left thumb and first 2 fingers.  Our neighbor the firefighter was gracious enough to come check things out and advised us to have her checked at the ER.  So off we went, at 8:00 PM on Sunday.  They diagnosed her with second degree burns, cleaned and dressed the wounds and gave us a referral to visit Shriner's Burn Clinic the next day.  (In this process they also gave her Tyelonol with Codeine, which was the only funny part of the entire experience because she became so loopy and jabbered endlessly about the craziest things that I could not stop laughing.)  On Monday afternoon we set off to Shriner's Hospital in Cincinnati for a follow up.  Luckily the burns had already started healing on their own and the doctors at Shriners gave Ella the all clear.  We are to apply Aquaphor several times a day and put bandaids on the burns and follow up in 2 weeks.  If all looks well by then we can even cancel the appointment.  Although we have asked several times, I don't believe we will every know why she did this.  She still somewhat traumatized about the whole thing and after telling her story to all the medical professionals and all of her friends who keep asking I have just let it go.

So several obvious, painful lessons learned by Ella and a quite expensive lesson learned by Mom and Dad - don't just assume your children know not to stick things in the outlets; get in their face and tell them point-blank!

Two sad events led me to reflect on lessons learned this week as well.  On Monday the world lost two great educators, one from my high school days and one from my college days.  It wasn't until I heard of their passings and started thinking back that I realized how very similar they were.  Mr. Bill Westerman was a religion teacher when I was in high school although I was never fortunate enough to be in his class.  But I have to admit, in high school I was A-OK with that because that man scared me half to death!  He came across as very gruff and I don't recall ever seeing him smile.  But then as an adult I had the opportunity to serve on several retreat teams with him and really got to know him and the absolutely wonderful, amazing man he was.  There are not enough good words in the English language to describe Mr. Westerman and I feel very fortunate for having crossed paths with him and for the small amount of time he spent in my life.  The life lessons I learned from him on those long weekends at St. Anne's Convent will forever remain with me.  Professor Art Chesler was an Economics instructor at KWC.  He was as round as he was tall and only taught those dreaded early-morning classes.  As a business major, those classes were on my list of requirements so off I went, sometimes (most times) half asleep.  I'm not going to pretend I absorbed every single word he said and I'm an econ expert now.  But it's funny now, how often I am able to think back and have that "ah-ha" moment where I realize that wonderful knowledge I'm applying is something I learned in his class.  He too came across as very gruff, a professor who was just there to talk to whoever cared to listen and didn't care what else was going on with you or anybody else.  But then there were the times I actually engaged him in conversation, or our encounters outside the classroom, or the concern he expressed when he learned something had happened.  I remember being shocked once when he asked how a classmate was doing with sincere concern!  Chesler is certainly a man I will never forget.

The obvious lesson learned here is the oldie-but-goodie "Don't judge a book by its cover."  But from both of these men I also learned to pay close attention to what is being said and think on it, then apply it to my life.  It doesn't matter that one taught religion and spoke about his strong faith and the other taught economics and spoke about its application in everyday life.  In one way or another, everything these men said applies to my everyday life.

And on a some-what related note... I started writing this post yesterday morning.  It is now 9:30 PM on Day 2 and I am finally getting around to finishing it.  Lesson learned?  Perhaps don't attempt to do anything with 3 crazy kids running around!