Too Much Fun in Ohio

Me and the kids are in Ohio visiting my family. I am the oldest of 4, so all my siblings are still at home. It's been quite the adventure so far! This is kind of a long post because it's several days updates.

Last Thursday (7/23) I had to go to the Dr because I was having some really bad cramping. I called my Dr and they suggested I go have an ultrasound done. Just to be sure nothing was wrong. So I called around to find a Dr my insurance plan would cover. I found one and waited an hour and a half to have the U/S done. The tech told me that there was a little fluid left from the D&C that was probably causing the cramping and it just needed to come out by itself and then I would be fine. By she wasn't a Dr so I needed to wait and hear what he had to say. So I waited another hour and then the Dr told me same thing. What a fun afternoon! Everything is fine now. No more pain.

Sunday was fun. There are less than 100 people in their branch. Sacrament meeting was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. We are used to about 100 kids in our meeting so Daphne's "whispers" were quite loud. Joseph was the only baby and caused quite the disturbance with his crawling around. The people are very nice and Daphne had fun in Primary with the other 8 children. It's so different!! But the people are very nice and the church is still the same. Isn't it awesome!?

Joseph is learning to climb and discovered the little rocking chair.

He was so happy he made it!

Ben is underneath the slide poking his finger through a hole on the platform thing.
Joseph thought it was a fun game.

Monday we went to Ashland so Ben could drop off his Eagle Scout Project paperwork. Grandpa's Cheese Barn was right down the street, so we went to get some mozzarella for pizzas that night. They have 75 different cheeses including a Strawberry Shortcake Cheddar. It has strawberries in the cheese. It really tasted like Strawberry Shortcake. They have an ice cream parlor too and Daphne got strawberry ice cream. They also have a sweet shop and we got some delicious fudge. By that point it was dinner time, so we got frostys to tide us over until we got home.





For Family Night we went to a place called bluefusion. It has bowling, a 9-hole miniature golf course, arcade and a fun playground for little kids. We went bowling, miniature golfing and played a few arcade games. My dad is an awesome bowler. He was getting strikes and spares all over the place! His few pointers made a little difference in my score (I was just having fun, but it was still awesome when I got a strike!) After the first game, Daphne and Joseph were done, so my mom took them to play on the playground while me, my dad and brothers played another game. After we got schooled my my dad, we went to see how the kids were doing. This playground was pretty cool. It had a slide and tunnels and foam balls you could shoot out of big air cannons and ones that made the balls float. It was pretty cool. Right when we got there, my mom and the kids came down the slide and Joseph started crying really loud. They had been having a really good time, but when they went down the slide his leg got caught going down and he hurt it. It was late and he hadn't had a nap so he went home with my mom and the rest of us stayed and played golf and a few games. It was tons of fun.

Daphne

Me

Ben

Sam

Air Cannon

Me playing DDR

When we got home Joseph was in bed and we got Daphne in bed and as I was getting ready for bed Joseph woke up very sad. I thought he maybe pulled a muscle in his leg or twisted his ankle or something because every time I touched it he would cry. And I thought he may be teething, so I gave him Tylenol and laid on the couch with him. He would go in and out of sleep, but finally crashed around 1:30am. In the morning, his leg was still hurting so I was going to wrap it and ice it and see how he did for a few days. I called Andrew and told him my plan and he kind of freaked out and told me to go to the Dr. After calls to the insurance company and then calls to find a place with an x-ray, we ended up going to an urgent care clinic 30 minutes away. I left Daphne with my brothers and took Joseph in. The Dr checked his ankle and leg and didn't see swelling or bruising and I told him Joseph would only cry when he stood on it. He was concerned he wouldn't be able to see much on an x-ray because babies bones haven't completely calcified yet. He did it anyway and came back with bad news. It was broken in several places. He has 2 greenstick or incomplete fractures. One on his tibia and one on his fibula (lower leg bones). I think his leg got pinned and then twisted on the way down the slide. The Dr's concern now was what to do about it. He said that in adults, that kind of break would require pins. But because babies bones haven't calcified, it could just need a cast. He said it was a good thing Andrew freaked out and made me go get it checked out. So he told me to go to the children's hospital (another 20 minutes away) and have them take care of it. My dad works on the way, so I called him and he came with me. We went to the ER and ended up needing to do another x-ray (the disk the clinic sent me with wouldn't pull up the films for the hospital). The nurse came back and told me what I already knew and said they could just cast it. So she asked what color I wanted. I thought green would be fun. Neon or regular? Just regular type. So another nurse came in and they started wrapping up his leg. She pulled out the green casting material and started wrapping. I thought, "Wow, that's really bright. Maybe it dries darker?" By the time she got the last layer on, the first nurse realized it was actually the neon green material. "No, big deal. It's fine," I said. Apparently it wasn't, because she proceeded to unwrap the now hardening cast. She couldn't get it all off so he has a little neon green at the top of his cast.

I was nervous to tell my mom, because she already felt HORRIBLE!!! So my dad called and told her what happened. I knew she would cry buckets. Grandma's aren't supposed to injure their grandchildren!

The adventure hasn't ended yet though. I'm driving the van and my dad is in his car. On the way home, right before our turn off the highway, the van starts making this thunking sound. It wasn't too bad at first, but it got louder and louder. I kept thinking I ran over something and it got stuck somewhere. I also thought I might have a flat, but the car wasn't acting like I thought a car with a flat would. i.e. hard to steer, going out of control, shaking, etc. I missed my turn, so I took the next one. Then it got hard to drive, so I pulled off the road and got out. Low and behold! a completely blown tire. There was about an 8-10" gash around plus another 3" gash like a spoke in the tire. Lovely!! Luckily, I had my brother, Ben's, phone so I called my dad and he came and got us. Him and Ben went back with his floor jack and changed the tire. My dad couldn't stop laughing. Would the craziness never end?!?!

When we got home, I could tell my mom had been crying. When she saw Joseph, it was too much and she cried some more in my dad's arms. I was very empathetic and said, "Hey, you broke my baby, I broke your car!" She didn't think that was funny... I tired to assure her that no one (Andrew or I) blames her, we don't hate her, we aren't mad. It could very well have happened if it were me and Joseph. Ben made it even worse and wrote on Joseph's cast, "It's my Grammie's fault". Nice.
Joseph is getting used to his new apparatus and is not stuck in one spot for too long. He is crawling OK, but I guess it's still tender, and maybe awkward as well, to stand, so he doesn't do that too much. I guess walking will be put on hold for a while. We go see a pediatric orthopedic surgeon next Tuesday, so that's when we find out how long he gets to wear it. Babies heal fast, so it may not be 4-6 weeks like normal. Let's hope!!

Daphne, Ben and Sam had fun. This is their driveway artwork:

Ben

Daphne

Sam