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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Laws of Motion

What is Newton's 3rd law of motion? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So basically when I made the appointment for a family photo session with Elle for last Sunday I should have seen it coming. I mean who hasn't seen the kid with the black eye or the cut on the face only to have their mother turn and say "yup, school pictures this week. Figures!"

I should have seen to coming!

Saturday when we were hanging out at home after I had slept in a bit (yum) and Jax was playing on my lap in the recliner. He would hang over the left arm and pull himself back up. Over and over. The last time he did it he pushed with his feet with all his might. I had an arm over his back for support but it wasn't enough. I tried to catch him with my right hand but his little foot slipped through.

My baby fell on his head. :( Worst. Mommy. Ever.

I scooped him up. He was crying pretty hard. I tried to access this situation, looking for blood and bumps. Nothing. He had no raising lumpies to speak of.

After a few more minutes of comforts and love he was done with me. I set him down on the floor by the slide (yes we have one in the family room) and tried to get him to crawl up. He cried. So I helped him do down. He laughed and had fun doing that a few times. Then I offered for him to try again. He tried to crawl and he just fell over and cried.

I thought maybe his equilibrium was off, being that he just smacked his head on the floor. More snuggles. A bit later he tried to crawl again with the same result. At this point it was about 5 minutes from the fall and I looked at Zack.

"I think it's broken. His arm. I think we need to take him in now"

He wanted to wait a bit and see if he felt better in a few minutes, but I knew. Something was wrong. I gathered us all together and headed for Urgent Care. $40, 2 Xrays and 1 screaming-held-down-looking-at-me-like-HOW-COULD-YOU-MAMA baby later and it was confirmed.
Broken Wrist. Both bones. Our best guess is he had his hands down when he fell and "caught" himself with his hand. It was tiny and hard to see on the Xray and our photo is even worse so I will spare you. He is in a temporary cast for at least a week (though our apt for a real cast is the 11th- does that seem too FAR to anyone else? They said they would see us again this week but then the apt person called she said they wanted to see me NEXT week. Almost 2 weeks after the break...)
I feel horrible. Poor little guy!

He can't crawl, though he tries to arm crawl sometimes. Mostly he just gets annoyed because he loses his balance and falls over and can't get up on his own. Luckily, he doesn't seem to be in any pain. He has been quite the trooper through it all. Now to get a cast to look 'cool' for those family photos I have to reschedule.

I shoulda seen it comin'

3 comments:

Geneva said...

When my sister, Emma was tiny, she fell off the front porch. My folks rushed her in for x-rays and were told to take her home and wait for a call about results (this was almost 23 years ago). About three days later, the phone rang, and sure enough, her little leg was broken. My mom said, "Oh dear", and looked over at Emma, who was vigorously jumping on the bed, giggling away...

They heal quickly, and you can't prevent everything! I'm so sorry this happened - to Jax and to you. Here's hoping he's doing his equivalent of "jumping on the bed" soon!

David said...

These things seems to come out of nowhere, don't they?

When Jake was about six, he was sliding on a friend's tile floor and fell. Crack. I felt so stupid, but like Geneva said, you can't prevent everything.

X-rays later confirmed that it was fractured. He still used it like crazy, even in a cast.

It's weird how resilient kids can be. If I broke my arm I would be a big baby until the cast was off.

I hope Jax feels better soon!

tracyannc said...

OH my, poor little fella :(