Just When We Thought Things Were Calming Down

Once again I am without my laptop, which makes it really difficult to find time to get much writing done…

There is a small person in our family who is bound and determined to turn me gray. I rather wish I would see those first few hairs pop up on my head so he would quit trying. He succeeded with Paul, but apparently my hair is a bit more stubborn.

There was no school this morning, which made the perfect opportunity to schedule a couple of make-up lessons for piano. The kids and I were up early as usual and after breakfast I got them squirreled away playing happily so I could teach my first student. She arrived at 9:00 and we got started. We were less than 15 minutes into the lesson when a piercing shriek ripped through the house, followed by panicked wailing cries.

“Jacob’s finger got smashed in the door!” Elizabeth came yelling into the living room. I walked over to kiss the poor little finger, and then I saw it dripping with blood. I scooped him into my arms and walked back to my bathroom to wash the finger off and stick a band-aid on it. “Oh boy,” I muttered, “a band-aid isn’t going to fix that.”

So after what seemed like a million phone calls, find a babysitter, call the other student, call the doctor, call the husband… I was finally on my way with a sobbing toddler and a tender big sister in the back seat, holding the towel around his hand and trying to comfort him.

The doctor was afraid it was broken and sent us to the hospital for x-rays. Jacob was a real trooper and received a little stuffed goat (which in his mind is a dog) much to his delight, as he waved his bandaged index finger and said “Ook! (look) Owie!” We drove back to the doctor’s office, and much to our relief, the finger was not broken. It was rather badly damaged however. Our ped glued the laceration shut and proceeded to explain that for it to heal we needed to immobilize it. A finger splint was out of the question, so a whole arm splint was brought in. The wrapped up the poor battered finger in gauze and fitted the splint to his hand and arm. Jacob sat and watched, fascinated, as the wrapped the bright orange bandage with smiley faces on it around and around his arm. When they were done he waved his arm in the air, “Ook! Ook!” trying to decide just what to think of it. (Now it looks like he did some major damage to his whole arm, I can hear all the exclamations of dismay on Sunday already)

The poor little tyke hasn’t taken such a sound nap in months as he did today after his little ordeal. One of the drawback is that it was his left index finger that got smashed, and he is primarily left-handed, but I’m sure he will compensate just fine. We should only have to splint it through the weekend, the doc will check it Monday morning when we are in for his Synagis (RSV) shot.

Well, though I had intended to write today, I hadn’t quite expected such excitement to write about…

If Jacob keeps all this up our lives will be anything but boring. heh 🙂