I guess it was about time one of my children broke a bone...and it was the child we'd most expect to do it, too! We had gone to the park after church today to have a picnic. I helped the 2 older children on the monkey bars for a little bit, trying to teach them how to swing from one bar to the next on their own. R can do pretty well on her own on the fixed monkey bars, but we were working on the bars that look like stirrups & are kind of free-swinging (make any sense?) Anyway, they lost interest & I left the play area to go check on the baby (dh was feeding her). I sat down, and the next thing I knew, our 5 year old dd, R, was half-walking, half-stumbling toward me, kinda crying & saying that she fell and that her arm hurt. I concentrated on wiping the sand off of her face, and sent Mike to the van for some water & the first aid kit. She had a little scrape on her left elbow, but I couldn't figure out why she was so worked up about that. She was trembling, and the poor thing said that she just wanted to lie on the grass. We packed up everything and everyone & headed home. She didn't want to move her arm at all, but seemed to have more mobility than the 2 times she's dislocated her elbow.

Mike called the dr's office on the way home, and they made an appt for us to take her to urgent care a couple of hours later. Thankfully she fell asleep on the way home & slept through being transferred to her bed. In fact, Mike had to wake her to put her in the car when it was time to leave home & head for her appt! It was blissfully quiet at the urgent care clinic, and we got into the dr very quickly (PTL!). He sent her for X-rays, and she did SO well. I was very proud of my brave little girl! It was apparent to me that it was broken when the X-ray tech came back w/the films & told me to not put R's shirt back on her, but to keep it as still as possible. Sure enough, when the doc looked at the X-rays, he said that she had fractured her humerus (that's the bone between the shoulder & elbow). He put her in a sling, and I have to take her to the orthopedic clinic tomorrow morning, but he doesn't think she'll be getting a cast--that they will probably keep her in a sling until her arm heals (about a month).

She's doing pretty well now. She gave her dada, brother & sister quite the speech when we got home--told them that they're not to jump on her or "wrassle" with her, which was really funny considering that she's the one most likely to do those things to THEM! She doesn't want any pain meds--she'd rather deal with the ache than to eat those nasty kids' grape-flavored tablets! (She has a high pain-tolerance, like her mama!)

So, pray for R, that she'll remember to keep her arm immobile & will heal quickly (especially since we leave for vacation in less than 2 wks!).