No More Monkeys Swinging on the Bars

On Wednesday Erick and I were picking up Rachel from school. We were out on the play ground. I saw Erick trying to jump up and grab onto the cursed monkey bars. Knowing he would never reach them on his own, (there are no ladders and I always have to lift him up to reach,)I briefly turned my attention to look for Rachel coming out of school to make sure she saw me. Immediately I heard crying and turned to find Erick holding his wrist and crying. I checked him over and I didn't see any weird things sticking out, swelling, or bruising. So I just held him and tried to comfort him until he settled down. But 15 minutes later he was still crying a lot and saying his wrist hurt. I have learned in my near 7 years as a mother, that when kids are okay they usually stop crying after a brief time. I decided I should take him to the ER for some ex rays to make sure nothing was broken. With Rachel in tow, we headed to the DeLima ER to find no one in the waiting room (miracle!) Upon checking in Rachel starts crying (Erick is still crying of course,) so I asked Rachel what was wrong with her and why she was crying. Her response was that she was afraid (then she pantomimed Erick's wrist getting chopped off!)Poor big sister was really afraid for her little brother. I reassured her that they were just going to take some pictures of it and if it was broken, they would fix it with a cast. After crying a lot for about 45 minutes straight, they got him back to a bed and turned on cartoons. He immediately stopped crying and went into a zone. He was fine as long as he was watching cartoons! The ex rays showed a minor fracture in his left wrist which they couldn't cast at the hospital. They splinted it, put it in a sling and sent us home with instructions to call the pediatric orthopedic. He got it cast yesterday, and those of you who know him well will know that he of course chose a BLUE cast! He is doing great and doesn't cry or complain about it so far. We are very blessed that it was minor, and taken care of quickly. Unfortunately we won't get to do a lot in the next 5 weeks, but he'll manage to find a way to play video games:)