Another Year, Another ER

So remember my last post? In which I made some cheeky reference to the 2009 ER trip? Well someone was paying attention and decided to punish me because tonight we landed in the ER again. The second January in a row. Last year we went 20 days into the new year - this year it was only about 3.75.

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Let's back up a bit - the year is 1977 and it's June (holy GOD that sounds like a LONG time ago, doesn't it?). The Masterson family, Bob, Donna and 2-year old Becky have moved into their new house on Valentine Street. The first night in the new house Becky becomes intimately acquainted with the new, yet-to-be-carpeted stairway leading from the first to the second floor. Having spent the first 2 years of her life in an apartment she had never seen stairs IN HER HOUSE before. So she fell down them - all of them. She cried - she was comforted - she was sent to bed. The next day Donna discovers that she can't move her arm. So to the hospital they go and lo and behold - a broken collarbone! (do you see where this is going yet?)


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No we haven't moved and don't have a new house. But what we DO have is a dining room table with a bench on one side. Now in general, we love the bench. It adds character to the table - you can squash more people on it - you can move it around the house for extra seating at parties. However, during dinner time the bench has proven to be a bit annoying. Lily prefers the bench and sits on that side with her Dad. And by sits I mean that she spins around on the bench, lies down on it, and occasionally finds her plate and jams some food into her mouth. We've tried having firm "no horsing around" rules - but it's hard. Honestly dinner-time became the new bed-time for me a few months ago. It can be exhausting trying to get her to sit still.

Tonight was no real exception. Lily managed to eat a good portion of ravioli, carrots, broccoli and cheese. She was waiting for Gordon to finish toasting her another slice of bread. And by waiting I mean that she was horsing around on the bench singing Frosty the Snowman and occasional coming over to my side to kiss Quinn on the head. At some point she lay down on the bench on her stomach - I found out later she was trying to look at a statue sitting on the fireplace. She scooted herself forward to get a better view of the statute and didn't notice that she had run out of bench - kind of like Wile E. Coyote running out of cliff - except she didn't get to hang out in the air and hold up an "Oh $#!%$" sign before crashing to the ground. She took a header off the end and landed badly - I don't really know the details of the landing because I was on the other side of the table stuffing my face in the time I had between feeding Quinn and getting him to his bath.

Gordon rushed over and picked her up - she was pretty upset, more upset than usual. I sat there gently admonishing her for horsing around on the bench and thinking to myself how having children SIGNFICANTLY increases the rate of household mishaps. I was even composing a witty facebook status update to that effect (aren't I awesome?). She kept crying so I fetched her bread from the toaster and went over there to distract her with it. I reached down to pluck her from Gordon's lap and when I held under her arm she let out a real scream. I knew right then that her collarbone was kaput.

So we loaded her into the stroller and I took her over to Somerville Hospital. Man it's pretty darn awesome having a hospital across the street from you let me tell you. She was in pain and freaked out when we got there - but everyone there was really great and she got comfortable pretty quickly. She was examined and there were X-Rays. Let me just say that my kid is a champion X-Ray taker. She's awesome at it - totally cooperative - and she's only three!

While the X-Ray tech was setting up Lily and I were chatting about what was going to happen. We talked about the last time she had X-Rays and how it didn't hurt at all. Her biggest concern was that they'd need to move her to the other bed and that could hurt her shoulder. I told her I would hold her hand. She said to me "I don't need no one to hold my hand". That made me both proud and more than a little sad. When the X-Ray tech came back we found out that she would do it right in the bed she was in. That thrilled Lily and she said "Mommy, you were WRONG!" with a giggle. When the actual pictures were taken she did in fact want to hold my hand - so yay for that - I'm too young to not have a job anymore!

The doctor read the X-Ray and showed it to me. Sure enough she's got a broken collarbone. They can't do much for it - she's got a sling that is like 4 sizes too big for her and will be getting motrin and ice regularly. She'll also be staying home from school this week to keep her from doing something else to it before it can set and start healing up. Apparently this is the most common childhood injury since the clavicle doesn't completely harden until adulthood. Who knew? I guess that's why I broke mine TWICE (again in 5th grade - I fell down walking - not. even. kidding) .

So it looks like Lily's inherited my proclivity towards crazy collarbone accidents. Sorry kiddo.

We took some pictures in the ER room to send to Daddy. Because really, what is an iPhone for if not to entertain a scared, hurting toddler in the ER? BTW - how adorably sad is that little sling?

Looking skeptical of this whole situation

Big smile to send to Daddy

And a picture of Mommy too - it's hard to take a picture with one hand!

Please send some healing thoughts her way and copious bottles of wine to us as we try to keep her from running, climbing, falling, etc for the next couple of weeks. And let's hope that Quinn managed to escape Mommy's accident-prone gene!