The Right Perspective

Monday, September 13, 2010

Life in the Fast Lane

It's been a while since I last posted, so I thought I'd catch you all up on what we've been doing.

Miss Emily is just about to turn six (on Wednesday, to be precise). She's doing extraordinarily well in Kindergarten so far. In fact, we've been pleasantly surprised with how well she's adapted. She still has a few teary moments now and then, but I think she really enjoys her class and recess and all that she's learning.

She did have a bit of mishap about two weeks ago. When I picked her up from school, the teacher handed me a note. I drove off (we were in the pick-up line, had to keep moving!) and read the note as I drove through the parking lot. It said that she had had a rough day and that she'd fallen off the monkey bars at recess and hurt her foot. She'd cried a lot and kept asking for me. So I asked Em about it and she confirmed that she had fallen and cried and wanted me and then she kept trying to show me her foot, which I kept telling her to wait and do at home. She was still kind of teary the whole way home.

When we got home, she took off her shoes and showed me her foot...and her big toe was all bruised and swollen. She didn't want to put any weight on her foot and was just very upset in general. However any suggestion that I made that we might need to go get it checked at the doctor made things 500 times worse. Andrew and I went back and forth on whether to take her for x-rays at the urgent care clinic, and finally decided that we should. So by this time it was around 7 pm and so off to the urgent care place we went. (Andrew stayed home and put the E-man to bed, while I took Miss Em.)

As you might imagine if you know Emily, it wasn't a pleasant trip. It didn't help that she was exhausted and terrified. Not a good combo even at home...but add the doctor's office and the possibility of x-rays...well, let's just say that it got a bit ugly. By the time we got x-rays, we'd already been waiting about 2 hours, maybe more. I had to physically place Em on the x-ray table (after grabbing her when she tried to run...but thankfully the toe injury slowed her down!). When I did, you would have thought someone was sawing her in half. Oh the drama! However, once she realized that what we had ALL told her was true (that nothing would touch her and that it was just going to be a picture of her toe), she was chattering away with so much relief. It's always eventful at the doctor's office, to say the least.

The x-rays were read by the urgent care doc, and he declared her toe just really bruised and sent us on our way. Em walked around for 2 more days, and then late Friday afternoon, we got a phone call from the urgent care clinic that the radiologist had read her x-rays and that her toe was indeed broken. So there we were, late on a Friday afternoon before Labor Day weekend, scrambling to find a post-op shoe for the poor girl to wear to keep her foot protected until we could see the pediatrician. I ended up going back to the urgent care clinic and asking if they had one we could use. They did, but the smallest size they had was a women's small, that was at least 3-4 inches too long and way to big to really imobilize her foot. But she wore it like a trooper...until her orthopedic appt. this past Thursday, where she finally got a shoe that fit. Now she just has to wear that shoe for about two weeks (at least until the 23rd) and then we'll go back to the orthopedic doc, get another set of x-rays and go from there. All because of the dang monkey bars! Who knew recess could cause so much trouble?

In Ethan news....guess who's walking? I tried my best to post a cute little video of the E-man walking around like a miniature Frankenstein, but despite my efforts, it won't load, so you'll just have to take my word for it. He walks all over the place now, falling down every few feet with a little thud, and then gets back up and goes again. His current loves: Beach balls, balloons and anything electronic or with wheels. He's already figured out how to turn on the tv with the remote and he's managed to break my computer. We might rename him "Destructo-boy"! He will be 14 months old this Friday and he's still a little squirt. He barely tips the scale at 20 lbs. and all the fall pants I bought him in size 12 months (thinking they would surely fit) still fall off him. He's got 6 teeth fully in and two more that are working their way in this week. All in all, he's just a happy, easy-going little fellow...just don't try to wake him up from his nap before he's ready. That's all he really asks in life...a little food and lots of sleep!

So there you have it....a quick update on our fast-paced life!