A terrible day at Target....

Stephen had probably one of the worst experiences of his short life up till now today. It's probably a tie between what happened today and that time the dog attacked him with the "love bug".

Probably one of Josh's worst experiences also. 

Heres the story:

We went to Target after the kids got out of school for some shoes and shirts and socks. I had a feeling (aka: prompting) to not go to Target today. Did I listen to that little small voice telling me to just head home? 

Ummmm, no. 

We went anyways.

All was going well. We had already picked out everything we needed and I thought that since we were there, I might as well look at the womens clothing. With 4 children tagging along, that's never a good idea. 

I should never go to that part of Target unless I'm alone or with a sister/friend. 

I saw 2 whole racks of skinny jeans and, much to my disappointment, was just approaching the third when I heard Stephen crying. He was with Joshua at the cart that I had walked away from for just a second. 

It wasn't a typical Stephen cry; he was more panicked than I had ever heard him be before. 

I immediately hurried over to see what the problem was. 

It was worse than I could have imagined. 

Joshua had a hanger hanging out of his eye. 

Seriously. 

It was awful, terrible, horrifying. 

I quickly pulled him out of the cart and sat on the floor with him to look at his eye. As I was doing so, a lady nearby was pulling out her phone to dial 911 and a crowd had now gathered. 

I cannot even describe the relief I felt when I pulled down his eyelid to look and realized that the hanger was hooked to his lower eyelid and not at all "stuck" in his eye. I "unhooked" it, which was just as terrible as it sounds and started to try to calm my crying children. 

Stephen was still crying, Anna was panicked, Joshua was crying and bleeding, but all was well. 

There were 4 Target employees gathered around by now also and as I sat there reassuring them that he was alright, I was still scared and shaking. 

I felt the adrenaline start to leave my body and all I could do was sit there and hold Joshua. 

We left right away. Stephen was still crying and as we were walking out of the store, Anna and Emily were trying to help him feel better. Apparently him and Joshua were playing catch with the socks which is what caused the hanger to hook to Josh's eye and Stephen felt like it was his fault. My sweet little boy felt so much guilt. 

We all tried reassuring him. We said a prayer and called Daddy and he started to calm down. 

I got Josh all cleaned up and laid him down on the couch with a cold wash rag over his eye and watching Cars. 

In about 5 minutes he was fast asleep. 

Trauma does that to him. Every time he's fainted, just a few minutes later, he's asleep. 

For now his eye is swollen and red but he quickly fell asleep tonight for bed (even though he took an hour nap at 4) 

I think he'll be alright. 

And he still has 2 beautiful brown eyes, thankfully~