Breaking the in-laws

So, for Madiyn's 1st birthday, Mike's parents really wanted to make the trip from Pennsylvania to come see her again. They hadnt seen her since she was 6 weeks old, and everyone was excited to get to re-connect! We have tried to keep up over Skype, and phone calls, but it is never enough. So, after a little planning, they arrived on Feb.11th to get to spend some time with her before she officially turned one! We were so excited to have them here with us. We went out to eat at PF Changs that very first night they were here. His parents come from a small town and had never had the opportunity to eat there before. We were so excited to introduce them to our favorite Lettuce Wraps! They were both pretty impressed and we had a great evening. We returned home to let our tired guests retire for the night after a long day of travel and excitement! Well our first day was wonderful until about 5 am! I was nearly thrown out of bed by the mosst horrible noise you can hear...especially when you are a mommy, too! It was a horrible bang, then another huge thud, then several thuds, a moan and then a cry for help. When I heard the first thud, I automatically assumed that Madilyn had somehow fallen out of her crib. After I realized that it isn't possibly yet, I immediately thought that it must be Mike's mom. My husband and his dad both flew out of bed and down the stairs to find my poor mother-in-law at the bottom of our stairs! She was complaining that she couldn't feel her legs, her shoulder was hurting, and that she thought her ankle was hurt. I was too afraid to even look down after seeing 2 huge holes in the walls of our stairway! She was claiming that she thought she turned right to go to the bathroom, but she went left and then walked right off the stairs and tumbled head first all the way down 2 landings, putting a hole in the wall with her head at each landing, and then continued down the remaining flight of stairs, where she then hit her head on our tile floor. I still couldn't look, but I finally was able to see that there was NO blood, so I headed down to help her. She really just wanted to go to the bathroom, so she was begging my husband and my father-in-law to help her up to go to the bathroom. I told them that I wanted to call an ambulance to have them check her out before we moved her, but she persisted for the help. They no more got her to a sitting position and she was in agaonizing pain and asked to be put back down. I immediately got on the phone with 911 and had them dispatch someone to come check her out. The ambulance arrived probably sooner than it seemed and evaluated her. Just by observation and touch they were able to assess that she had not broken anything, but they were transporting her to St.Rose Hospital for x-rays and further observation. She spent the day at the hospital and was released at 2pm with NO broken bones, NO concussion, No hip fractures, and NO real injury other than a lot of bruises and a couple black eyes! It was a serious miracle! It put a damper on their trip as she was completely on 3 different pain pills that made her sleep all the time. She was actually able to get dressed and visit during Madilyn's party on Saturday. We were very grateful for that! She is still recovering at home, but she claims that her trip was still good even though she took a nasty fall! This whole experience is probably trying to prepare us for future accidents with our kids, but it really just makes me want to get a 1-story home instead! Now Mike's brother is coming out to visit in March and he jokes that he is going to stay in a hotel because he doesn't want to stay somewhere with holes in the walls! Ha Ha! We will sure have a lot to talk about when he gets here!