Change of Plans

I had a fabulous post on chickens and predators and the possibility of getting a Great Pyrenees dog.  I just needed some time yesterday to get it finished up.  It was all written up, and just needed a little tweaking.  The kids needed to get to VBS at church, though, so we headed into town to drop them off first.

Then there was a change of plans.

So yesterday was kind of rough.  We got hit at an intersection of 2 county roads about a 1/2 mile from our house on the way into town.  I hate that intersection.  Everyone hates that intersection.  It gets worse when the corn grows tall and you can’t see around the corner.  See, the problem with this intersection is that one road has the right of way, and the other road does not.  Well, that is the situation, but perhaps not the problem.  Intersections like that exist around the world.

The problem here, as with many back country roads, is that the people who do not have the right of way have the impression of being completely alone.  For city people especially, it’s a different feeling. You’re just driving along, 55 mph (as you should) and passing farm after farm.  Then you see a stop sign.  You can choose to stop at that stop sign, or you can choose to say “Huh.  I’m out in the country, and there’s no other cars around.  Why should I stop when I’m not stopping for any cars?”

Residents around here know this intersection to be infamous for having cars speed through the stop sign, and I’m not the first car to have gotten hit by a car that did not stop at the stop sign.

It was so scary.  I spent the rest of the day very literally trying to stop shaking.  All 5 kids were with me and I was (of course) driving.  Ingrid was in her carseat behind me the door slammed into her and I enough that her carseat got a knick in it.  She was fine.  Everyone was buckled in properly, and in the proper seat.  It was like every safety feature that was designed to work did.  We all screamed for awhile and then realized we were all fine.

We are all safe.  I felt the van trying to roll when we were hit.  The van should have rolled, and I don’t know why it didn’t.  We ended up in a ditch, missing street signs and landing just in tall grass.

I actually called Knut first since the witness behind me ran over to us to make sure we were okay and said he was calling the police.  Knut was working in some fields a few miles north of us, and he was there almost instantly.

The other driver was another mom, with other kids in her car that ended up looking worse than ours.  The sheriff’s department came to file a report after they got statements from the 2 vehicles involved, and the other driver who witnessed the whole thing.  The other car that hit us was late to a baseball game.  She felt awful.  She was just as scared as I was (perhaps more).  After we gave our statements, we hugged through our shaking in relief that all 8 children involved in the accident were safe.  The officer chuckled at our hugging and said that women handle accidents very differently then men.

I was sore and tense when the officer took my statement.  I told him I was just sore and not in need of an ambulance.  He said it was the adrenaline.  He told me that I won’t feel the pain for a few hours, so don’t be surprised when it comes.  I called my chiropractor for all of us before the pain came, but the earliest he could see the kids and me was during his lunch hour today, so that’s what we’re doing.  I’m actually nervous about driving there today.

I posted on Facebook about the accident, and it wasn’t even a few minutes when one of my friends called and asked if my 2 older kids still needed a ride to church.  So she drove all the way out to us and back to town to pick them up, and then again to drop them off in the afternoon.  I’m so blessed with amazing friends.

The pain unfolded as the day went on, and so I took some Advil, but I was in a daze from the shock of it all.  I got nothing done all day.  I would just stop and think about what could have happened.  When the thought overwhelmed me, I then picked up the phone to a friend or sister, and just praised God with someone else for protecting my kids.  I spent a lot of time on the phone…and van shopping online.  We will be van shopping this week, and perhaps next.  Funny how that moves to the top of the list in a hurry.  Van shopping will likely be our anniversary date this week.

Besides my soreness that grew into pain as the adrenaline fell, our list of injuries is as short as Silje having a sore where the seat belt dug into her shoulder.  Solveig had something loose in the car hit and scratch her leg.  Elias had his finger on his face when the van was hit, and it jammed into his face so he has a sore spot there.  We’ll all see the chiropractor today and see how it all is further than that.  None of them say they’re hurt, but then again, none of them are the best communicators at that sort of thing.

Praise God it’s nothing worse than that.  Elias especially is very sad that our van will be replaced.  I held his hand and we went out to the yard and stared at it for quite some time.  It was almost as if he worried it was in pain, and it pained him to see it all bent out of shape.  He has such a tender heart.  He’s such a caregiver, even if it’s for a van.

David said it was the worst day of his life.  I told him that was funny, because it was the best day of my life.  “Huh?” he said.

“Yes, today is the day that I got to see God save my family.  I’m bubbling over with thankfulness.”

So he decided that was pretty cool too.