It was just a matter of time

11/15/2010

Blake lives hard, y'all.  Of all my children, he is the one who will least surprise me someday when he calls to say that he's been up for four days straight, and he's got a final exam that afternoon, and by the way he's also in Mexico.  So I pretty much knew that it was just going to be a matter of time until something got broken.  This weekend proved me right!

While we were at the park on Saturday, I was pushing Ava in the swing, watching Jack find new things to put in his mouth, when all of a sudden I heard a scream from behind me and turned around to see Blake with his arm hanging all crazy at his side.  He'd been climbing something and fell off; when he landed, it was hand-first with his arm locked at the elbow.

Here's where my brain went into awesome crisis management mode.  I couldn't be sure if the arm was broken, but I was pretty sure from how it was hanging.  Instead of driving to the hospital (which was only like a mile and a half from the park we were at) and calling Courtney from there, I drove home with all the kids first so that my wife the nurse could give her professional opinion.  What made this even more exciting is that my nephew was going to spend the night with us on Saturday to celebrate Blake's birthday, and he was already at the house when we got there.  Courtney took Blake to the ER, I took the wee two to their godparents house, and drove Carter to the hospital with me.  (Carter, who had been silent in the car until Ava got out: "Boy, she sure is a talker.")

Having Carter at the hospital was actually a positive thing - the boys kept each other entertained and happy.  In the part of my brain where hope springs eternal, I honestly thought that they'd get Blake casted up, release us, and the boys would still have a fun evening at home.  Well...  Courtney's shift started at 7 and she had to leave.  The cartoons on the hospital room TV eventually dried up, and the boys began to get restless.  At around 7:45 my sister texted to see how Carter was doing, and that's when I told her where we were and that I hadn't even fed her son dinner yet.  She was very cool about it - my brother in law was up there in the next 15 minutes to take Carter back home.

The orthopedist was stuck in surgery, so he finally came to see us at about 10 PM.  Here's Blake getting his cast.  I think his face pretty much says it all about how he was feeling by that point.

So... That was my weekend, how was yours?  Oh, also Jack had an ear infection with yellow gunk running down his face, and Ava had strep.  I have never been happier to walk into my office than I was this morning.

But here's the worst part!  A little over a year ago, Ava broke her arm.  Ever since then, whenever I needed a tiebreaker in a parenting argument discussion, I could always just play the "what do I know, I'm just the parent who's never had a kid break a bone on my watch" card.  And now that's gone!  GONE!

So that I don't leave you on a bummer, here's a picture from happier times, when we picked Blake up and took him to lunch at Chuck E. Cheese on his birthday.  That place is weird when it's empty, Chuck and the band singing to an empty showroom like Spinal Tap at a state fair...

3 comments:

Becca said...

Oh man, that's a rough weekend!! I hope everyone is doing better soon.

Ali said...

so... pretty much, you broke your own kid's arm with your taunting of the fates and all your "I'm just the parent who's never had a kid break a bone on my watch" talk. i hope your proud of yourself.

Jake said...

I have strep too.

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