Want Stress With That?

Well, I have had quite the rough day today. It started out quietly enough as I rolled out of bed about 7:15 or so and wiped the sleep out of my eyes...little did I know that something sinister was coming my direction. I shuttled kids into the car just after 8:25, to drop of my oldest for his Safety Patrol duty. I dropped him off and waved goodbye and parked my van with my younger two children in it to wait for about 15 minutes until it was closer to school starting. I've found that if I let my little one out any earlier he tends to get into mischief...it's just much easier to sit for few minutes beforehand.
I pulled up in front of the school and parked and pulled down the TV for the kids to watch a DVD and settled back into my seat with my now lukewarm cup of coffee. The kids argued back and forth about whether or not to skip a scene and had just settled on skipping it when I could hear the screech of a tire behind me. My car rocked as I looked in the side-view mirror, only to have it be obliterated before my eyes. I let out a scream in slow motion before being echoed by the screams of my children in the backseat. It took a few seconds to realize what had happened before I had the sense to look around behind me and make sure no one was actually damaged. I was greeted by the side of my car by several concerned parents and teachers as I pried my sliding door on the driver's side open, having had the "automatic" mechanism disabled by the impact. I unbuckled my baby and pulled him into my arms as he was crying and walked around to the other side to open the door for my daughter. I assured several people that we were really okay, just scared, as I pulled my daughter out of the car. I got them calmed down a little and realized I needed my cell phone to call my man. Somehow a teacher guided the kids into the office as I searched my car unsuccessfully for my phone. Why is it that we always forget our phones when it's really important? I walked into the office to call and was greeted by my daughter afterward who was very shaken up still. A teacher assured me that my baby was alright and that he had taken him to class and my daughter walked out to the car to wait with me. I asked her if she needed to go home, but she ended going to school when the bell rang.
As we waited for an officer to show up I noticed that the Safety Patrol crossing guard who was on duty behind me was a friend of my kids' and he was crying and very upset. I also noticed his Mom was standing on the sidewalk behind me. It wasn't until I heard the driver of the van, that had hit me, tell a bystander that she had been hit by a white car, that I pieced together what had happened.
The white car (driven by my kids' friend's Mom) had pulled out of the driveway behind me and had clipped a blue van, popping it's tire. The driver of the blue van lost control because of the popped tire and went crashing into my van. I unfortunately, was just at the back end of a chain of events and my van got the brunt of it!
My man got there and we examined the van closer and discovered that not only had the van been sideswiped, my axle on the front had been broken, the back axle bent, transmission damaged, and the force of the crash was enough that the rim on the opposite side of the car had been driven into the curb. It broke the cement even!
After taking a zillion pictures and filling out an incident report and talking to the officer and the insurance adjuster and the tow truck drivers and the driver of the blue van, I watched as they loaded my broken van onto a tow truck and hauled it away.
I have never been in an automobile accident before and hope to never be in any worse of one again. So much for a quiet enough day! I think I'll turn in for the day and no, I really didn't need stress with that! ;0)