best day ever

Great. Now I have that Sponge Bob song stuck in my head.

Anyway…….

I was so excited to see how well he did yesterday! It was definitely a huge breakthrough day for him.

I have set my alarm every day this week for 4:30am to get up and run. This morning was pretty typical; it was 5:07am and I didn’t hear the alarm for the umpteenth time, but I did hear someone saying rather loudly “how many times are you going to hit snooze on that alarm???“

That’s pretty much a recap of my running this week. I have no excuses for Saturday morning though!

Mr. Sun came up and he smiled at me,
He said it’s gonna be a good one just wait and see,
‘Jumped out of bed, feeling so extra exctatified,
It’s the best day ever!
It’s the best day ever!

full day

I didn’t get a call to pick up a 4-year old all day long. The phone rang several times, mostly when I couldn’t readily answer it so I was sure each time it was pre-school calling to say he’d had enough for one day.

But they didn’t. I picked him up after I wrapped up a call for work this afternoon and when I got there, he was walking around on the playground, just like he’s done so many times. If I didn’t know better, it might have even been a typical, ordinary day.

He colored. He played with blocks. He ate lunch and took a nap and hugged all of his friends. But none of it happened in our house; it was down the street where I couldn’t see or hear him, but knew he was safe in someone else’s hands.

Can I stop holding my breath yet?

http://www.youtube.com/v/fNARrhU1hpI

trial basis

I guess I’ll find out soon enough if I made the right decision. Yesterday afternoon, I took the 4-year old back to pre-school and met with the director and assistant director. We assessed his ability to get around in class, and on the playground, using the bathroom, etc.

Today marks the first day he’s been back in class since he broke his leg – 2 days shy of 10 weeks. I told them better to be safe than sorry, if he’s getting tired, cranky, complaining of pain or just needs some extra time to adjust to let me know and I’ll go pick him up.

Maybe he’ll make it through the whole day. Maybe I’ll be there by 10am.

This feels like the first day of kindergarten felt when I shipped my oldest off to school.

1 week later

I’m multi-tasking (and if anyone wants to help me catch up on work, just let me know). One week after the cast came off, I think a video tells the story best as to his progress.

http://www.youtube.com/v/HPZg4Bj6XrU

He can stand upright for a few moments. He occasionally will take a few steps but prefers to crab crawl; not a problem as the walking is obviously going to happen at some point.

I do have a concern with his toes pointing out to the right when he does walk, so I called his doctor to get a referral for physical therapy (TCH has an annex with physical therapy 5 minutes from our house). They generally give the patients 2 weeks to work things out so it may be another week before I can get the orders written for physical therapy but we’ll wait and see how it goes.

Here’s my lesson of the week. Be patient. Learn to manage expectations (for the adults as well as children).

toenails

Remember how I mentioned that I couldn’t trim his toenails because the cast extended so far past them that I couldn’t reach them?

His progress is about the same as it’s been since Wednesday – walking with someone holding one or both of his hands but preferring to scoot on the floor like a crab to get anywhere.

walking 1 handed

http://www.youtube.com/v/H36ZtIHwloI

comments

As far as his walking goes…it is definitely our expectation that he will walk normally again. Right now he has little muscle control but it’s coming back. He has dreamed of being a baseball player his entire 4 year life; some days I think all he talks about is the Astros and his dream to play baseball with Lance Berkman. I don’t think that’s going to happen since his growth plate has likely been affected and he was already treated at TCH for height and weight issues before this happened..

I need to convince him being a horse jockey is an admirable profession!

The first day it took him 9 hours after the cast was off before he did anything, and that was to scoot.

The second day he wanted to walk everywhere for brief periods of time as long as I held on to both hands above his head – literally toddling, just like a toddler – side to side.

Yesterday he stood in front of me just learning to balance for seconds at a time while not holding on to anything. And a few times we took short walks with me holding on to just his right hand. Karen made a good point that until he’s really steady on his feet, we need someone near him whenever he’s on his feet.

Cassie, did I ever tell the story here about my mom? She said it was amazing she had all those kids and none of us ever had a broken bone. I told her I thought it was amazing she had all those kids and none of us ever had a tattoo! LOL!

day 3

Day 2 went well! I did give him Tylenol and Motrin for the pain (soreness and tightness I’m guessing?) but other than that he was in a happy mood.

Earlier in the day someone asked if we had a walker for him. The answer was no, but that gave me an idea that his dad could probably work one up pretty quickly so I called him. He suggested I go by the medical supply store to see if they sold pediatric walkers.

What fun is that when he could make one? He came around to my way of thinking and before long…

He picked up the wood at 7:30 last night and shortly after 10pm, it was done. Nothing fancy, but it’s something he can hold on to and keep his balance.

I made sure to wake him up before his dad took off for work this morning so we could all see his reaction when he tried it out the first time.

moisturizing soap

I meant to mention this also. If you have time before the appointment, picking up some liquid moisturizing soap, something like Aveeno has, or if you have anything in the shower from Bath & Body Works, etc. I would have that on hand.

Also, if you have a really good moisturizing cream on hand once you get home that will be good to have too.

He has asked more times than I can count on two hands to take a bath, and extra moisturizer for him at this point is a good thing.

He still doesn’t want me to touch the leg that was broken so I’ve had a time getting any type of moisturizer on that one, which is why I suggested the soap for the bath tub that has a moisturizer built in.

But the non-broken leg is very dry and has a lot of chafing on it so after the bath, I’ve been giving it some extra attention.

before you go

If you see this before you go to your appointment, then I wanted to respond about whether to take your wagon to the appointment when the cast is taken off. The answer for us was a resounding – Yes.

He did not want to be touched – at all – after the cast came off. He did not want to be carried anywhere by anyone for any reason. Actually, I have to give credit to my boss for telling me to expect this ahead of time.

The reason he did not want to be carried is after that many weeks, he figured out that as uncomfortable as the cast is, it also protected his broken leg. It was the one thing that was helping his leg heal and get broken.

And now they just took it off. There went his safety net.

That’s why he was so scared – there was nothing left now to protect him. On top of that, we had all been telling him he needed to be careful once the cast came off because any rough housing would easily break his leg again.

That is true, one bad fall and his leg really will break again. However…I can safely say there will be no running or jumping on his part for quite some time to come. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t even bring that up until a day or two after the cast came off.

The long answer to a short question is yes, I would definitely recommend you take the wagon with you on the trip today to have the cast taken off.

Oh! And in our case with a child who is 4 1/2, I really was looking forward to him feeling like he weighed as much as a feather…. He can’t stand unassisted yet, but I can safely say even without getting him back on the scale….that cast didn’t weigh as much as I blamed it!

Now I am lugging around a much more huggable little boy and I love that I can put my arms around his chest and just hold on to him…but he doesn’t really weigh that much less as far as I can tell.