It was Mother's Day 2009 and daddy was overseas. He had been gone for awhile and was actually due to come back soon. Instead of torturing myself with taking 2 year old Bumpkin and 13 month old Troublemaker to church by myself (I wish I didn't have to use the words torture and church in the same sentence but this one is unavoidable) I decided to skip church and make my Mother's Day as fun and peaceful as I could. So we skipped church and went to the park. We were having a dandy old time playing and had been there quiet a while when we started going down the slide. Now, here is when I wish I would have seen the Dateline special that was on about two weeks ago about kids breaking their legs while riding down slides on their parents laps. I'm not sure it would have stopped me but it would have atleast made me consider not letting the girls ride on my lap.
Instead, I put Bumpkin on my lap, Troublemaker on top of her and headed down the slide. Then we got to the curve. Bumpkins leg slide right off and got caught between my leg and the slide. It happened in a flash and then we were at the bottom of the slide. I think she maybe let out a yelp when it happened but she really started crying when we got to the bottom of the slide. I did the customary mother duty of cuddling her and trying to make her feel better but after what I considered to be the normal amount of crying I told her to buck up or we were going home. Now, I put it so "gently" because even at the young age of 2 I knew Bumpkin was a drama queen through and through. She sat there for a couple more minutes by herself and continued to whine then after another threat from me about going home she tried to walk. She made it half a step before collapsing on the ground and screaming in pain. I was sure it was all drama but didn't want to deal with it at the park so we loaded up and headed home.
Bumpkin cried the whole walk home and for about two episodes of Dora before I started to take her seriously. I had already checked her ankle a few times but I was starting to get worried that there was something deeper that I couldn't see. So I called my parents at church until they finally answered (four or five times?) and they came right away. Bumpkin was still crying when they got to our house, they didn't see anything that I couldn't see, so dad and I loaded Bumpkin up and went to the E.R.
After telling my story over and over to nursing, doctors, social workers, etc I finally convinced everyone that the story really happened the way it did. But as annoying as it was to have to be silently investigated (I knew why so many people were asking me to tell my story but nobody ever said "we are making sure this isn't child abuse) I was more annoyed that they still hadn't found anything wrong with my daughter. Finally, after what my memory tells me was hours of testing a doctor came in and ordered a second set of X-Ray's of the whole leg. Originally, the X-Rays were just of her ankle area because that was what bent backwards. But he said his daughter had had something similar happen when she was a kid and the break had happened much further up the leg. Thank goodness he did that because he found the break. Actually, he called it a fracture. I don't remember the difference anymore, all I knew is we had finally figured out the problem and a course of action was established. Bumpkin got a removable cast, I got a long list of instructions, and we were finally on our way.
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This whole time I hadn't mentioned that it was actually Mother's Day to my kids. It seems a little backwards to be like "it is Mother's Day, please tell me how much you love me". So I'm not quiet sure how Bumpkin put it together but during one of the many times we were sitting in our room waiting for a doctor she turned to me (she was on my lap), took my face in both of her hands, and said "Happy Mother's Day Mommy". I immediately started crying. It was so sweet and is still one of my favorite memories. Somehow, her little 2 year old mind was able to remember that it was Mother's Day, even though we were in the E.R., waiting for her cast to be put on, and she had been crying/wimpering for hours.
Once she had pain medicine Bumpkin liked what happened next. She was the center of attention and eating it all up. The daycare wasn't sure they were able to take care of her properly so for the first week Nana took Bumpkin. She ate up the one-on-one attention and after a few days learned how to do a modified crawl. Grandma even made her some special undies that velcro'ed at the side because she had just been potty trained and it was difficult to pull her undies over her cast. The next week the daycare took her back and after a couple more weeks daddy came home. We even made sure nobody else signed her cast so daddy could be the first one.
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Thank goodness there is no permanent problems. She walks fine and happily tells the story like it is a badge of honor. For awhile she claimed to be "scared" of the slide but that was all just drama. The daycare told me she figured out how to climb up the stairs while dragging her cast and would go down the slide; so I knew not to believe her. It seems the biggest residual effect we still have with Mother's Day is my apprehension. Daddy is still gone; it still doesn't "click" for the kids that they should be nice, not argue, bring me breakfast in bed :), etc; and I am still scared to do anything fun with them for fear that something bad would happen. Maybe in another four years....
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