2nd (and 1st!) Nursemaid's Elbow

Well, tonight was a second (and first) for me. A couple of weeks ago, one of my nursing staff asked me, "Can you see a two year old with a broken elbow?" I said that I could, as long as it was a non-operative fracture. Well, the father brought the little girl in, and the x-rays were taken before I got in the room. I reviewed them, and there was no fracture that I could appreciate... I went in the room to evaluate the patient, and found a cute little girl sitting there with her elbow partially flexed and hand pronated. A quick supination and flex later, I heard a satisfying "pop" and told Dad, "I'll be back in a few minutes." When I came back in, Dad had a big smile on his face, and the patient was climbing up on the stool using her previously useless arm. I explained she had a Nursemaid's Elbow, which occurs when the annular ligament slips between the humerus and the radial head. After it's reduced, the patient regains use of the arm quickly (within 10 minutes usually but it sometimes takes 30 minutes to return to full use) and are as good as new. There are few things I get to do that are as quickly satisfying.

Well, tonight, as I was getting Jax ready to go to bed, he started to pitch a fit while I was holding his left arm. He went to sit down, I went to pick him up, and I felt a "pop." He cried out and I looked- yep, his arm was flexed and pronated. I picked him up, flexed and supinated him, and heard another "click." Five minutes later, he was as good as new. However, it's not as satisfying when you're the cause of it in the first place... Hopefully, that's my last family reduction- if Jax continues the way he is, however, I somehow doubt it.

Christmas Train

Last year Calen and I spent a day making a gingerbread Christmas train. We had fun making the gingerbread dough, cutting out the shapes, baking them, putting the train together and decorating it. It also tasted yummy. None of us were fans of gingerbread cookies until we tried them homemade.

This year we decided to do it again; it just took longer. The pieces were baked on Friday, but this weekend we had so much going on we didn't get to work on it. So finally this morning I decided to postpone our lessons to finish our train (homeschooling's awesome). Besides the assembly process is several lessons in itself (life's cool that way).

It took a while to get some of the pieces to stay put because royal icing can be very finicky, but we persevered and added more icing. After they had dried for a few minutes, Calen began to decorate the cars. He did a great job, and he can be a stickler for details (we have no idea were he gets it, haha). The train turned out great, and a couple wheels have already been sampled by some cookie monsters.

Shhh..I'm hunting wabbits.

Well, not really. Jax is more like that wascally wabbit. He turned 15 months the end of November. At his check-up he weighed in at a solid 27 pounds. He is two inches shorter and five pounds heavier than Calen was. While Calen was long and skinny, Jax is short and stocky. We call him Tank or Dozer a lot. He just plows right into and over everything, often leaving a path of destruction. His legs resemble small tree trunks.

Everyday Jax is doing something new. He has a vocabulary of about 30 words that we know; he also has his own language. We seldom have any idea as to what he is jabbering on about. After a few days of paying close attention to his speech, I realized he would often repeat the same "words" or "phrases." I'm trying t0 match a particular word or phrase to what he is doing or what he wants. It's not very easy. The pediatrician told me that Calen will pick up on the lingo sooner and will probably be able to help. Riley will probably be in on this secret language if it continues over the next several months. Us parents could get left out of the loop. Sigh...

Last week, Jax discovered something fun (aside from the Christmas tree). He has come to find there is great joy to be had in being sneaky. He will now "hit the deck" and crawl past us in an attempt to get somewhere or something he shouldn't. He will cover his mouth if he giggles uncontrollably at something. He will also flatten (best as he can) against the wall around the corner from mom or dad. If we discover him, he will quickly cast his eye downwards towards the floor. If he can't see us then it stands to reason we can't see him. You can see the little corners of his lips turned upward as he tries to stand very still and very quiet.

Jax has also taken to hiding things. Last week he was following me towards his room when I noticed he had stopped and turned back to the kitchen. I called him a few times with no luck. I walked back to the kitchen, and he was standing with his back towards me. I said, "Jackson," at which point he spun around with one of Calen's new toys in hand. As his eyes locked on mine, he quickly threw the hand holding the toy behind his back. He just looked at me and smiled as if to say, "Hey. I'm just hanging out doing nothing." There he stood with that incredibly cute grin and a hand behind his back.

Another sneaky trick that he tried last week on Danny had me almost in tears. This is one of those "Where is the video camera when you need it?!" moments. Danny was sitting on the couch downstairs. Next to the couch is Danny's cue stick rack. Jax keep trying to walk past Danny to get to the rack so he could pull all the cue sticks off into the floor. Every time he would try to get past, Danny would hold out his arm to block him. After a few unsuccessful attempts to get past Danny, Jax finally looked at Danny and then pointed up to a picture hanging on the wall. Danny brought it back from a Peru mission trip, and it has a couple llamas on it. Jax would point and jabber. Danny would look up and say something about the picture and look back a Jax. After a few times, I told to Danny to just keep looking up at the llamas. As Danny kept looking up at the wall, Jax turned around and pressed his back against the wall with arms spread out hugging the wall. With his eyes closely watching Danny, he took a big step sideways, squatting slightly, stood up and did it again until he was at the corner near the rack. Where DO they learn these things?

First Snow

While there are so many people, places and things we miss in Greenwood and Winston-Salem, we love being back home. The seasons here are wonderful. As we approach winter, we had our "first" snow on December 1st. We have actually had several days with flurries here and there since October 27th. None of them have stuck to the ground.

The boys have been so excited to see so many days with flurries. Calen is like me and loves to just sit and watch it, especially since he hasn't seen very many. This particular day, we had had flurries on and off. I happened to look out the window later that afternoon and see that the ground was a little white. I gathered up the boys and outside we went. This was Jax's first experience with snow, and he loved it! Calen helped him make his first snow angel.

Those first flurries bring excitement and anticipation of snow angels, snowball fights, snowmen and sledding. While it wasn't by any means a lot of snow, we were happy and thankful for it. We pray to more to come. A White Christmas would be nice.