nursemaid’s elbow

Another day, another nursemaid’s elbow

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Evie was having a fit about something or other and she flopped boneless to the floor while Sara was holding her hands. Suddenly, she cried out, clutched her arm to her stomach and yelled, “Noooo! Not again!” Later I found it funny that she remembered clearly enough the sensation of the first one, that she recognized it as the same. It seemed such an adult thing to say. Then she immediately called for a blanket and her teddy bear, for comfort.

Anyway, it was very clear that it was the same thing as before. They told us at the time that once it happened the first time, it was likely to happen again. It was a lot less scary this time having gone through it once. The doctor had showed us how to fix it ourselves, but our memory was not perfect. Sara tried it and it didn’t seem to fix it. We weren’t sure what to do about it, but I was a little suspicious that perhaps Sara had indeed fixed it, even though Sara didn’t think so. Evie had been crying and after Sara tried she stopped crying, even if she was still holding her arm close to her chest.

She said her arm still hurt, but I was still suspicious. I mean, this is the girl who’s still milking her skinned knee from a week ago, and still tells me about her “brave fingers” that got pinched in the closet door months ago. Also, the doctor told us that sometimes it took a little while for it to stop hurting, even after it was fixed. Sure enough, maybe 10 minutes later, Evie was giving us high fives with her bad arm.

So, once again, all’s well that ends well. At least this time it didn’t involve a trip to the emergency room.

In completely unrelated news, I saw the movie Once last night. I had never heard of this movie until the Oscars, when Falling Slowly, the song from the movie, absolutely haunted me and I had to listen to it over and over again.

There are tons and tons of good songs in there, some possibly even better than Falling Slowly, such as If You Want Me and The Hill. I think I’ll be needing this soundtrack for Christmas…

Nursemaid’s Elbow

/ Shane / 3 Comments

On Saturday the weather was beautiful and Sara got the idea to go to a state park that was not too far away and go hiking. The first part of the day went really well, but around 11 or so we were walking and it was getting a little muddy. Evie wanted to walk, but whenever we came to a muddy part, Sara and I would lift her up by her arms until we were past the muddy part. On this particular one, Evie started to cry a little bit. You can probably see where this is going. She never really cried full out, she was just sort of whining a lot. It was around time for her nap, so we thought maybe she was just tired, although she did seem like she was fussier than usual. She fell asleep on Sara’s shoulder on the way back to the car, but she seemed to be sleeping very lightly and if we tried to shift her she’d wake up and cry. Finally we got back to the car and she slept most of the way home.

When she woke up she complained that her arm hurt and she kept it close to her body, refusing to use it for anything. We talked to our doctor and she told us to take her to the emergency room, making this our 3rd trip in under 6 months. It turns out that she had a dislocated ligament in her elbow, a very common ailment known as Nursemaid’s Elbow. The name apparently comes from having a nursemaid jerk your kid around by their arms, or in this case, swinging your kid up by the arms. The doctor said a lot of kids even do it to themselves. The thing is, this just happened to my boss and his daughter a few weeks ago, so it was the first thing that came to our minds. The bad news is that now that it has happened once, it is that much more likely to happen again. But she will eventually grow out of it.

So, as if hiking a couple of miles in the morning wasn’t enough for one day, we ended up spending a total of about 3 1/2 hours at the emergency room, even though it took literally about 2 seconds to fix. It was amazing, the doctor just rotated her arm a certain way and the pain seemed to go away instantly. In about 5 minutes she was acting like nothing was wrong at all, using the arm like normal. Because we thought we’d be leaving soon I didn’t go put more money in the meter, but a trauma came in to the ER and the resulting ticket means the trip to the emergency room cost $50 more than it should have. (Side note, wow have traffic tickets changed! When I got home I was able to look up pictures online of my car and the expired meter.)

Did I mention that in the middle of all of this, she apparently got two more teeth? And don’t get me started about how she is not even 2 and she seems like she is already giving up on naps. Oh well, another day, another person saying Evie looks like Shilo Pitt.

I don’t know how many times Sara or I said, “What a day!” and that was even before the power went out to our entire block. Luckily we had *just* finished our movie and we were getting ready for bed, so it wasn’t too disruptive. Plus I got to smugly use the flashlight I keep next to the bed. Sara makes fun of me for it and I’ve never had a chance to use it until now.

All’s well that ends well, I guess.

On Sunday we went to the museum. We were getting ready to go and Evie ran out into the main entry hall, with me following behind. There was an old car on display and she must have decided she wanted a closer look because she ran head first into the plexiglass around it, hard enough to knock herself on her butt. She wasn’t too hurt, just a little dazed and confused. I think even after she hit it she didn’t see it and she wasn’t sure what happened. Sara and I felt bad for her, but we just could not stop laughing about it.

She says so many cute things during the day, that I can hardly remember them all, much less put them all here.  Like when she says something like, “Can we have ice cream? Maybe, we’ll see.” Or when you ask her something and she says, “Ack-shoo-all-y…”

Evie was eating some Cheerios when she suddenly indicated one of them and said, “It’s waiting.” “What is it waiting for?” asked Sara. “Evie’s mouth. After this one and this one.”

There has been an ongoing issue with the fact that Evie has blue eyes, but she wants to have brown eyes like her mommy. The other day she said, “Mommy has brown eyes” so I said, “What color eyes does Evie have?” “I forget,” said Evie. “You have blue eyes,” I said, forgetting her displeasure with them. “I forget,” she said again. “I’m reminding you,” I said. “You have blue eyes.” “I forget,” she said menacingly. I said, “It’s okay that you forgot, because I’m telling you you have blue eyes.” “I FORGET!” yelled Evie. I guess we all have things we are trying to forget.