Natalie's Arm: A Very Minor Fracture

Last night, Natalie fell at the play area at the mall (which our pediatrician calls "the germ pit"). It was a pretty minor fall. She was jumping off an object about 18 inches high, but didn't quite stick the landing and tripped, landing with her left arm extended. For the most part, she's as tough as nails, so when she wanted to climb into Mommy's lap and stay here, holding her wrist, we knew something was wrong. So we took her to a new urgent care center near the mall and found out that she had a very minor fracture near her left wrist. The x-ray below -- which the urgent care center gave to us on CD-ROM -- shows the fracture, called a "buckle" fracture. It appears in the x-ray as a little bump of the right edge of the bone. As the doctor explained it, kids' bones are pretty soft, and this is more like a crease than a crack. It should heal without any problem. We'll follow up with an orthopedist just to be sure.

Natalie has a splint on her arm now and may get a cast from the orthopedist. She woke up once last night crying, but with a little tylenol, she went right back to sleep. It's going to be interesting getting her through the basic daily routine with one arm. I'm not sure what we'll do about school on Monday if she can't figure out how to go to the bathroom independently.

The urgent care center, incidentally, was awesome. Our local emergency room is famous for 4-hour waits on Saturday nights, but the urgent care center got us registered, x-rayed, examined, splinted, re-examined and discharged in 30 minutes. And we didn't feel rushed at all; they just didn't waste any time. We were in the waiting room for about 2 minutes and went from there straight to x-ray. From x-ray we went to the exam room. The doctor walked in two minutes later and had already read the x-rays. And it went on like that, with each person being cheerful, empathetic to Natalie, and happy to answer questions. And it was a smaller co-pay than the Emergency Room!

Rollerskating

Danielle took Natalie to a birthday party at a roller skating rink today.  I have to admit that I thought this was not a great idea.  I mean, what 4-year-old knows how to roller skate?

Apparently Natalie does.  This came rather as a surpise to Danielle and me.  She's never been roller skating before.  But Danielle rented her a pair of skates that strap over her shoes, and she took to it like a duck to water.  Not just skating around, mind you, but spinning in circles and skating on one foot with the other foot up in the air!

Incredible.

Lesson learned:  kids can do more than you might expect.  Let them try.

I'm going to take her ice skating soon.  And this time I'll remember to bring the camera.

Aiden's first baby sign

Aiden is not much of a talker. He babbles a bit, and likes to blow rasberries, but so far it has been just nonsense. Occassionally he'll stick with "ma ma ma ma," or "da da da da" for a while, but we've never gotten the impression that "ma ma" means mommy or "da da" means daddy. In the last two days, however, he has given us indisputable proof that he knows that baby sign for "light."

For whatever reason, Aiden finds lights fascinating (lights and wheels, actually; a future firefighter). He stares at lights and squeals with delight if I hold him close enough that he can touch the lampshade. Because of this intense interest, Danielle started showing him the baby sign for "light": hold you arm up high, open your hand and fingers wide, then close your first and open your hand two times quickly to simulate a light blinking on. Aiden watched closely for about two weeks and now he does it almost every time he see a light, whether it's a headlight, a lamp or the sun.

Tonight's demonstration, which prompted this post, happened when I was bringing Aiden in from the car and pointed out a plane that had just taken off. It was a jumbo jet with the landing lights on (headlights for planes), and lights were illuminating the clouds and mist in front of the plane. Aiden saw it an immediately made the sign for light. Then when we got inside he looked at the lamp, which was on, and made the sign again.

With this little bit of encouragement, we'll be trying to teach Aiden some more useful signs, like "hungry," "bottle" and "more." I suspect those three words will be some of his favorites.

Gifts

Natalie was very excited yesterday morning when I told her that I didn't have to go to work, and Mommy didn't have to go to work, and she didn't have to go to school. I think she really understands the concept of a weekend now.

Perhaps because she was so happy to be spending time with her parents, Natalie decided to paint a picture for me last night. When she was finished, I praised it like it was the Mona Lisa, and then told Natalie that I was going to hang it in my office.

It was like I gave her a present. She lit up with a smile and ran back to dining room to paint a picture for Mommy to hang in her classroom.

With all that giving going around, Aiden decided to give me a little "gift" in the bathtub. So I got to spend the night washing the tub with a solution of bleach.

Enthusiasm Wanes Fast

Last night I reminded Natalie that she has school in the morning. She burst into tears and shrieked, "I don't want to go to school! I don't like it!"

I asked her why not. After a few sobs she said, "Because I'm not with my Daddy!" More sobs.

What can do but hug her?

As she started to calm down a little, I pointed out that when she's at school, I'm at work, so we're really not apart any longer on account of school. That, of course, was no help. "But I'm not with my Mommy or my Mom-mom either!"

Natalie went to "camp" over the summer, which consisted of half days at a kid-size gym, so she's had some introduction to being away from family, but I guess the two full days that she spends at school are probably hard on her.

I bet she comes around soon, though.

Rugrat

It's been almost four months since we've posed anything about Aiden, so here's an update about him. Aiden is . . . large. At his six-month checkup, he was in the 90th percentile for weight and off the chart for length. The week before last he weighed in at 22 lbs 4 oz.

Aiden has a very different personality from his sister. He's inquisitive and will study an object, particularly wheels, for quite some time before putting them down. He's also an explorer, trying to find all the places he can get into, going after electrical outlets, plastic bags, pieces of paper -- basically, anything we're not supposed to leave lying around. In that way, he's helping us start to keep a tidier house. Of course, it's hard to keep the house tidy because of another of his qualities: he likes to be picked up and held. In fact, he can quite angry if you put him down, even for a second.

Aiden has something like 8 teeth now. He eats like a horse and will consume any sort of baby food that we put in front of him. He seems particularly fond of sweet potatoes.

Aiden has been crawling for a while now and is able to pull himself to a standing position with no difficulty at all. He's definitely much more mobile than his sister was at this age. We expect that he'll be a early walker.

One more thing about Aiden, he apparently doesn't know that babies are supposed to be afraid of loud noises:

Speaking of Back to School

Danielle is going back to school, too. She had decided to go back to work full-time this fall, but then the county started having budget problems and was laying off teachers instead of hiring them. Then, a few weeks before summer was over, the county starting re-hiring some of the teachers it had laid off, and it looked like there might even be a few openings. So we waited, but got no calls for interviews.

Finally, a week before classes start, Danielle calls the director of human resources and says that she wants to know if there are any positions to interview for. Sure enough, there is one opening in the county, and Danielle is scheduled for an interview. It goes well, and there is only one other applicant, but Danielle decided to call human resources again. She says that she wants the job, but is willing to interview for other positions as well. Lo and behold, another position has just been created. It's in the school Danielle wants to work in (the one she liked best during her time as a substitute teacher), and it's for 3rd grade, which would be her first choice. She interviews and is hired on the spot.

So, at left and below, you'll see Mrs. Smith's classroom. Danielle has a hard job. While most teachers teach or one two subjects, and has students rotate through so that they only have to prepare one or two lessons, Danielle has her kids all day. So she teaches them everything, and has to prepare a full day of lessons. She's been working 10 or 11 hours days all week. Hopefully, once she finishes getting her classroom set up and gets more into the swing of things, she'll be able to work a more reasonable schedule.