The Amazing Twin Adventure

So we had the most bizarre accident with Hays yesterday. When he woke up from his nap Matt noticed that he had a few strands of hair wrapped around three of his toes. It had gotten so tightly wrapped that it was cutting into his toes and cutting off the circulation. His toes were purple and swollen and the cuts were pretty deep. I had been out running errands and I came home as Matt was trying to get the hair off. He wasn't having much luck and Hays was getting really upset. I was kind of freaking out and decided to take him to the urgent care center near our house. I thought about taking him to the emergency room, but I figured we'd have to wait forever. Luckily, they took us right on back at the urgent care center (once I showed them his bulging, purple toes.) The nurse practioner said that this is not as uncommon as you would think. She said that she used to work in a pediatrician's office and they would see this at least once a month! She and the doctor were able to remove the strands of hair (which was, of course, mine. Yay for the mother of the year!) and the circulation returned right away. The cuts were very deep- almost halfway through his toes- but the doctor thinks they'll heal fine. They put lots of neosporine on it and bandaged his foot. The doctor also gave him an antibiotic because it was already showing signs of infection. The really freaky thing was that all of this happened within an hour. He had been barefoot most of the morning, so we would have noticed it if it had happened before naptime. The nurse told me that it doesn't take long at all to get bad, and that if we hadn't noticed it when we did and brought him right in, he might have lost a toe or two! Unbelievable.

I had to take him back today so they could check him and make sure everything looks allright. The cuts look bad and his toes are still really swollen, but they're pink and the circulation is fine. The doctor said they should heal completely within a few days, and we just have to keep them clean and keep neosporine on them. It was just the craziest thing. I check their fingers for hair because they love to pull hair, but i never even thought to check their toes. you'd better believe I will be from now on.
As if that weren't exciting enough, we are having more septic tank issues. I noticed on Thursday or Friday that everytime I did laundry, the yard smelled like sewage. I hoped it was coming from someone else's yard, but no, it was ours. I called the guy who pumped out or tank a couple of months ago, and he was like, "Yeah, I was afraid that was going to happen. Your system is really old and you're going to need to replace the whole thing." Our house is 40 years old, and he said that's about as long as you can expect a septic system to last. Then he told me that replacing the whole system will cost somewhere between $3,000-$7,000. Yay. And in order to replace the system, you have to have a permit from the environmental health department. So the inspector came out today and told me we would need a whole new type of tank and all new fill lines. He recommended several and I found one who's estimate was between $3,500 and $4,500 depending on what was needed. It's a lot of money, but it beats $7,000. Ah, the joys of homeownership. So next week we should have guys with backhoes digging up the yard. Mason can't wait!