Friday, April 29, 2011

Broken Arm

My beautiful, rambunctious, affectionate, extraordinarily physical son broke his arm.  It happened at his pre-school.   Luckily it happened within 10 minutes of us getting there and I was still there.  Imogen was sitting on one of the big rocking horses, having a great time and Gage climbed into the tree house to begin his day at  school.  The tree house that he has been in at least a hundred times.   The tree house that hundreds of children have been in day after day.  It is in a fig tree, a sprawling bush of a fig tree.  It's limbs surrounding the house and create what seems to be a very supportive and safe environment.  Well, safe for a tree house.  But this day, this silly Friday morning like so many Friday mornings before it, this day was different.

This morning Gage, picked up one of the large sticks that lived in the tree house, held it up in the air to began his fight with some imaginary bad guy and stepped back.  He stepped back, as the bad guy must have begun his onslaught, stepped back into empty space.  And he fell and fell and fell.  He fell about 6 feet to the dirt.  One of those falls that happen in slow motion as well as so fast your stomach churns.  I know this because we were about 15 feet away.  I saw and felt the fall.  The sound of his landing was a sickening splat.  I knew from the landing, from the sound more than the sight that it was not a good landing.  Something was wrong.

I sprinted to his still body on the ground as he erupted into screams.  "Don't move!", I instructed.  Let's figure out what is wrong before you get up.  Trying to  remember to breath, to stay calm.  Of course he immediately jumped up and kept up his screaming.  Screams of pain.  I saw a bump on his arm and I knew, I just knew his arm was broken.

After some help from his teacher and her fireman husband we headed off to the emergency room, followed by  Kate another mom who had just dropped off her daughter at the school, was childless and wiling to help with Imogen.  (Thank you Kate!!!)  Again, I remembered to breath, to stay calm as I drove to the emergency room while my beloved first born sobbed in the back seat.  His cries were so sad, filled with so much pain, all he wanted was for me to help him.  "Help me, Mama!" he pleaded "Help me, Mama! - please help me".  The worst thing a mother can hear, help me, when there is absolutely nothing I can do.  Nothing.  I am so sorry honey, so sorry.

We finally got to the emergency and got the relief that I could not give, morphine.  Aw morphine, my son changed from a screaming mess of pain, into a personable, friendly patient.  "thank you for helping me", he says to the nurse post-morphine.  The x-ray showed a buckle brake.  A very common brake for these young people, whose bones are so flexible.  Instead of braking or fracturing, his bones compressed.  The x-ray shows a bump on either side of the bone where the break took place.  A buckle brake.

Here is my doped up son just after getting home



For about two days he needed to have ibuprofen somewhat regularly, but after that no pain.  He was soon climbing, running and falling on his arm with no apparent repercussions.  Soon the biggest irritant was the sling he had to wear with his splint.  The splint they originally put on to give his arm room for swelling.  He shed the sling whenever he could, even to read to his sister.





10 days later he got his cast.  A glow-in-the-dark cast he is incredibly proud of.  So in love with the cast that he won't let anyone sign it.  :)

Poor Yoko

I came home today from a fun filled play date with our friends Kirsten, Avi and Eli to find a very annoyed husband.  "One of the chickens got into the neighbor's yard and their dog got it, the red one." he says to me with more than a tad bit of anger.

"Dead?" I ask.

"No, OK it is back in the chicken yard"

I go out to check on the invalid and find her strutting around with her sisters, missing most of her tail feathers.  Bare skin flashing.




I haven't gotten the rest of the story, seemed the wrong time to ask.  But I plan on taking a gift of a wine and a dozen eggs to my neighbor tomorrow for her trouble.  :)

Hopefully the silly chicken will now realize how lucky they are, how good their lives are and how dangerous the neighbors dog is!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Charlotte

We have a new member to our animal family.  She won't be with us long as she has a very short life span, but we are enjoying her efforts so far.  She lives just outside our front door and keeps the bug population down.


I know there are many out there that are squeamish about spiders, but our little Charlotte is wonderful.  I asked Gage what he wanted to name her and he came up with Spidey, as he is currently in a Spiderman faze. I overrode him.  Charlotte seems so much more fitting.  Especially after the egg sack arrived.



We are waiting for the eggs to hatch, however sad we will be when Charlotte's time comes to an end.  Making babies and eating bugs is her purpose and she seems to be getting tired.  So we'll see how much longer she will guard our entry way and keep us safe.


Long live Charlotte.