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Friday, April 30, 2010

The Day Mr. Awesome Broke the Baby

Today started out pretty well. I was only down 0.4 at Weight Watchers but at least I was down, right? I went for a great walk on a trail near our house and actually (are you sitting down?) JOGGED for part of it. Yes, I jogged. Pigs just might start flying by the window any minute, but I actually jogged. I'm planning on doing the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure in October and running the 5K route. I'm also planning on not passing out at the end of it, so it may require some training of sorts.

I got into the shower when I got home and when I got out I heard the little miss crying over the baby monitor. She wasn't stopping, which is very unusual for her. I went to investigate. I found Mr. Awesome comforting my baby girl and the little man lying on the floor "hiding" as he does when she is upset.

Let's go with the short version. There was a change table, there was some rolling, and then there was a lot of crying. Despite the title of this post, it was not Mr. Awesome's fault (it just makes for better reading). It wasn't even the little man's fault. It was only a split second of distraction and she was down. It could have happened to either of us. She seems determined to get moving, and sometimes that means vertically instead of horizontally. She has occasionally rolled off much lower items before, and always recovers within about a minute. She wasn't calming down this time, but we couldn't see any obvious break or swelling. She did settle down for a few minutes here and there but then would start back up again. Any other kid and we may have figured it was just your standard crying, but our little miss doesn't cry very much. (This is why I don't talk about her very often. I'm afraid I'll jinx it.) Even the little man, the one always guaranteed to make her smile, wasn't having his usual effect. We decided to take her to Emergency to get her checked out just to make sure.

One awesome nurse and one hot doctor later ("Adam" - we never got his "Dr." name. When did things get so casual? What have Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs done to us?), we were in X-ray and told that something looks suspicious. Sure enough, Adam came back to tell us there was indeed a break and she would need a cast. Go figure, the little man gets into trouble climbing various things on a daily basis and our six month old daughter is the one that gets the first cast.

She's such a trooper. Once the drugs kicked in she was back to her smiley self (okay, she was stoned but she was still smiley), even while the cast was being put on. I don't know if you've ever seen an infant in a cast, but it's so sad. It goes right around her pelvis to lock in her hip and make sure she doesn't move her leg at all. Her diaper has to go on top of the cast, which will make her first dirty diaper an absolute nightmare. Things will get into places I don't even want to think about.

So, my little muffin is a neon pink cast for approximately two weeks. I feel like a new mom again. I have to learn how to hold her in this contraption, and I have to learn how to soothe the crying (a magic mix of breastfeeding and Ibuprofen seem to do the trick). I have to figure out how to change diapers around a solid mass. Actually, that part is a little like the prenatal class where they make you change a hard plastic doll that does nothing to prepare you for changing a real infant. I never thought that would ACTUALLY come in handy.

When we got home I had her on her playmat (as I will NOT be leaving her on the couch again, even for a second) and she had her giant neon pink leg up and over she rolled. She didn't even try the "easy" leg, she hoisted the Fiberglas trunk like it wasn't even there. She did kind of get stuck there though, she can't push up like she used to. I'm sure she'll figure it out soon.

Kids just amaze me. They are so resilient. They can bounce back from just about anything. But, as we learned today, they can't actually bounce.

5 comments:

  1. Oh you poor loves. My son (aged 4) broke his left femur (thigh) in Feb and ended up in a full cast. I have every empathy, I really do.

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  2. O wow! I have a 6 month old too and I can't even imagine him in a cast! Good luck! Hope it all goes ok!

    http://thereviewstew.blogspot.com

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  3. I hope you figure out the diaper issue. Wow. My [then] four year old broke his arm the first week of summer vacation. He was so miserable.

    She's probably going to use it to her advantage. You did great.

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  4. Oh my goodness a little wee cast! That totally could have happened to anyone, now I'm going to be really paranoid for the next week or so before I can go back to my lacklusterness.

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  5. Oh Gill yikes! I'm so sorry :( poor little thing.

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