Big and Sparkly

Trout is normally not fussy. At all. So when he wasn't feeling well yesterday and a little on the fussy side, I gave up the rest of my day and just spent it with him. Mostly holding him, some laying down and playing quietly. That pretty much did the trick. See? Not fussy.

However. By giving up the rest of my day it also meant I was less, let's say involved, with the other kids. The big boys took advantage by playing computer, Squareboy went to a friends house, and daughter? Daughter changed out her earrings.

"Look mom! I've got new earrings in! I did it myself! Aren't they big and sparkly ?!" I was so focused on cooling down her excitedness, Daughter unfortunately has a very squeaky, betty-boopesque voice, so while quieting her for Trout's sake, I didn't pay much real attention to her words. Or earrings. I quickly shushed her, oohed & aahed a little over her skill at switching out her own earrings, and commented that the new earrings were indeed big and sparkly . Very big and sparkly .

It wasn't till hours later that I realized that Daughter doesn't own any big and sparkly earrings. I, on the other hand, do. I have a much prized very real pair of diamond earrings. While they aren't that big, on Daughters little, tiny, adorable earlobes they would look big and sparkly. Luckily, thanks to my belated realization, they were still there behaving very big and sparkly on her little, tiny adorable earlobes.

Now they are safely off and hidden. Thankyouverymuch.

A Tiny Tumble

Eldest & I had an argument today. He wanted to go to work, I wanted him to stay home. Usually it's the teenagers that want to stay home & the parents that want them to go to work, heck, it's that way for much of the workforce any excuse will do. Eldest, methinks, had a great excuse to stay home. The boy had two broken bones in his right arm. And he's a camp counselor, not the easiest, non-physical-est job in the world. His point was that he loses money if he stays home, and he was going to miss on the day he gets his real cast again then that would be two days. Why should he miss two days? Two days equals a lot of lost dollars. In the end he won and he went to work.

Now if I'd seen the xrays before he went to work I might've fought harder. While I understood the part about the broken bones, I heard 'clean' break and thought we were good. Slap on a cast, wait 6 weeks, no problem. Then I saw the xray. He broke all the way through both bones, right at the big lumpy parts where the bones connect to the wrist. In the case of the radius he not only broke all the way through, but halfway through the break splits and makes a second break up into the bone. Not quite as neat & 'clean' as I was thinking.

Luckily, after a mere 4 hours on the phone, I managed to get him in to an orthopedic surgeon bright & early tomorrow morning. I will feel a lot better with Eldest safe & secure in a sturdy cast, versus that flimsy piece of pseudo-fiberglass he has strapped halfway around his arm. Or I should say, sometimes strapped halfway around his arm. The boy keeps unwrapping it. Ostensibly to ice it, but, I suspect, really because it's hot & itchy. Not that a real, sturdy cast won't be hot & itchy but at least he can't unwrap... though the last time he had a cast by week 3 he was able to slip his arm out. Maybe he forgot about that trick?

By now, I'm sure, you are all wondering how he did it. Well. De Opa had bought Squareboy a new frisbee. So, of course, the new frisbee floated on up to the roof. Eldest, being a world class tree climber since age 2 went to climb a tree, to get to the roof, to get the frisbee. The thing is, he's not 2 anymore. And while he grew the tree grew too, but not at the same rate. And so as he put his big almost-17-year--old weight on the tree, the tree said "NO!" and it's one & only branch snapped right off. And poor Eldest tumbled to the ground. The thing is, he wasn't very high up. This I can prove. Because when you do something so silly as climb a tiny tree and take a tiny tumble out of the tiny tree and break your arm in a big way, there is no punishment a parent can give a child. Except to embarrass him:

Not that he's embarrassed. Eldest's only worry is the tan line he'll have when summer is over & the cast comes off.

Ow! My Balls!

Middle Child tried to put me into labor last night. It was one of those beautiful, warm, perfect North Carolina evenings. No humidity yet, pollen levels were low and the threat of thunder far away. Being three weeks away from the birth of #6 I decided a walk was in order. Not to induce labor, but rather to keep things/get things in tip-top shape to make labor easier.

Middle Child had other ideas. Middle Child and Eldest happily (via bribery) came along "just in case," with Middle Child given the possible role of mommy's babysitter and Eldest the possible role of running home for the minivan. And so we go strolling along. Not even getting past our property line before madness ensued. Between an uncooperative baby carriage, missile-shaped pinecones, skinned knees, rabid squirrels and wild children, well, we were a spectacle. Slow moving at that. Our neighbors around the corner greeted us with waves & grins:

"We heard you coming!" Lovely.

It turned out to be a good thing they did because they happily took Squareboy and Daughter off my hands so me and the big boys could take a brisker walk. Of course, both Eldest and Middle Child would disagree on the "brisk" part of brisker. I felt I was walking quite impressively. They alternated between hopping on one foot, practicing the "drunk" walk forward and the "drunk" walk backwards to show just how un-brisk I was. Middle Child is quite excited to try out the "drunk" glasses in driver's ed next fall. I was just excited to walk about in the beautiful evening with my big boys.

Have you seen the movie Idiocracy with Luke Wilson? Me neither, but I've seen bits & pieces. It is truly an idiotic movie. It's about a guy (Joe/Luke) who through Army-experiment-gone-bad winds up in the future. A future filled with stupid people where he is the smartest guy on the planet and the show "Ow! My Balls!" is the #1 show. Well...

We were nearing the end of our walk. My big boys were getting goofier as I got slower, I would've asked for a piggy-back ride but 1) where would I put my belly, and 2) they would've said "No.". It is at this time we meet the fence pictured in the really bad picture above. Eldest, never able to resist any kind of balance-beam challenge, or any kind of leap-frog challenge, hops up & walks the fence. Middle Child looks at it quizzically and worries that it will break if he tries to balance-beam it. I, being a most excellent mother, laugh and say "If it doesn't break when he (eldest) does it, it certainly won't break if you do it!"

Middle Child believes me, hops up, starts walking, I take aforementioned, above, really bad picture and... the fence breaks. Middle Child shoots straight down, one leg on each side of the fence and... "Ow! My Balls!"

Eldest immediately rolls to the ground laughing hysterically. While I too, I'm sorry but I did, immediately start laughing, I did manage to check and make sure Middle Child wasn't gravely injured. While he was writhing on the forest floor in pain, he was also laughing. Eldest couldn't stop laughing and yelling "Ow! My Balls!" He and Middle Child just love that movie, this was the best thing that happened to him in a looooong time.

I'm laughing so hard the tears are streaming down my face, I feel absolutely horrible about the laughing at the same time because Middle Child is honestly hurt, but I can't stop. In fact, I can't stop so much that Middle Child is up & walking home (next to Eldest who is still hicupping "Ow! My Balls!") before I can recover and take so much as a step.

Our neighbors around the corner were quite concerned by the time I finally rounded the corner, well after Middle Child and Eldest passed on their way home. They thought I'd gone into labor and my big boys had desserted me. Not that I didn't deserve dessertion. I giggelingly relayed poor Middle Child's mishap, furthering his humiliation because I am a really good mother that way, picked up Squareboy and Daughter (daughter with one wet foot from slipping into the lake) and continued on home. Not in labor, but with a very well exercised stomach.