Bloody Noses

I felt like such a proud mama this morning.  Alyssa was up and ready in time to chill and watch TV before school.  The other three (later bus) got up and got themselves ready.  They all ate nutritious food because I'd fixed banana muffins the night before.  I was feeling like Mother of the Year....and then the bloody nose struck.  It came out of nowhere and all I heard Daniel say was, "Ooops, bloody nose."  He disappeared into the bathroom.  Being that bloody noses are relatively common with the dry Colorado air, I didn't think too much of it....until he can meandering back into the kitchen with blood gushing out of his nose, his hands cupped underneath, and blood-soaked tissue stuck to his wrist.
"Why aren't you in the bathroom!?!" I shrieked, as he hung his head over the kitchen sink for the blood to gush into.  He answered that Sydney needed to use the bathroom and kicked him out (for which we had a discussion about later).  I cupped my hands under his and we headed into MY bathroom to finish this bloody nose fiasco, once and for all.  When we got into the bathroom, I kicked our yellow bath rug out of the way so it wouldn't get damaged, grabbed a few tissues layered atop of each other and then began the "pinch off" process for him.  As the blood flow slowed (I kept pinching), he was able to wash his hands and arms off so he didn't look like a massacre victim.  Then, when the blood slowed to a trickle, we plugged it with cotton and set to the task of cleaning him up the rest of the way.  After wiping down his face (carefully), re-washing his hands and arms, changing his clothes (right down to his socks) and removing the cotton to make sure he was plugged, we gave him a couple pieces of tissue in his pocket and sent him on his way.
After he left, I had a whole different mess to clean up....blood everywhere.  There was blood all over the counter, floor, and sink of the kids' bathroom, not to mention bloody tissues left everywhere.  There was a bloody pool in the kitchen sink as well as bloody tissues and bloody handprints on the counter.   My bathroom was the worst though with bloody handprints everywhere.  Thank God for good natural cleaning remedies.
Moral of the story?  Life has a way of throwing you curveballs and you just have to roll with the punches.