{"id":519,"date":"2011-05-18T14:56:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wednesday-may-18-2011\/"},"modified":"2011-05-18T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-18T18:56:00","slug":"wednesday-may-18-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wednesday-may-18-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday May 18, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

First Grade is history!  Adam smiles hugely a few times a day and says, “I’m a second grader now, Mommy.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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He could hardly wait for school to be over so he could play outside.  He absolutely loved school until about March and then things started dragging a little.  “Mommy, all you do is sit and sit and sit and sit for so long.”  I started missing him more the closer we got to the end of school and could hardly wait to have both my boys home so we could go do fun things together.  And I absolutely could not wait to quit those school runs and actually get the chance to stay at home for an entire day (has not happened yet, but it will soon!).  Seriously.  I think we could have single-handedly kept a gas station in business.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It felt so good to get his school uniform out one last time.  To wake him one last time … although I rarely woke him the last few months since he’s been popping out of bed on his own ten minutes early.  He was all smiles all day long, relishing the fun that is the last day of school, packing his things to get home, and ceremoniously shredding his ripped-at-the-knee school pants. <\/span>
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The end of school is always a full weekend with a program Friday night and an annual picnic for the entire church and all school patron families.  Adam loves the church picnics.  At least he used to.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The rain was mostly mist and sometimes held off entirely, so, like usual, the children scarfed down their food and headed for the playground almost before the adults sat down with hamburger laden plates.  I’d just finished eating when I saw a dazed Adam being led up the hill by a child not much older than himself who said, “He fell,” and disappeared to play again.  Adam is the kind who gets knocked and jumps back up most of the time, so I knew this was a little worse than normal or then he was embarrassed to have fallen in front of a crowd (more likely).  He told me he fell off the zip line (which only mildly concerned me at first since there is grass underneath) and that his back hurt.  And then he quietly sat on my lap as I gently rubbed his back for a little.  Suddenly I realized that nearly five minutes had gone by and there was a new tear rolling down his cheek.  “Adam, does your back still hurt?”  <\/span>

He nodded.  <\/span>

“Is it the same or better or worse?”<\/span>

“Worse.”<\/span>

I rubbed a little again and felt his muscles spasm beneath his shirt.  After more questions, I realized that he had fallen pretty soon after taking off which meant a longer fall, that he landed flat on his back, that he could not breathe at first AND that he did not get up on his own, someone picked him up.  I pretty much went into adrenalin mode when I heard that.  He said it hurt worse to walk and I wanted to panic.  David pulled the car up to the pavilion and took care of Liam while I headed in toward town with Adam who was slumped over against the door.  <\/span>

“You may not go to sleep,” I said when his eyes closed.  As soon as I had cell phone service I called his pediatrician’s office to see if I could get in.  The nurse insisted I head to the ER when I told her he dropped about six feet so I changed direction slightly and kept going.  About that time, silent person in the back revived and started jabbering non-stop.  “Mommy, do you think ….” <\/span>

I called back and asked if I could come there instead of the ER now and she said, “No.”  Not wanting to be stupid I headed in, got him registered, and left him with the receptionist while I went to park the car.  We looked at the little tablet she’d given him and I taught him how to play hang man.  He was acting completely normal at this point and getting more and more excited about the game. <\/span>

“Adam, how is your back feeling?” <\/span>

“Good.”<\/span>

“Does it hurt?”<\/span>

“Nope, not at all.”  <\/span>

I asked him to lean forward and carefully pushed every vertebrae.  He giggled.  I did want him evaluated, but seriously, I could not see the necessity of sitting in the ER to have half a dozen tests run when he was learning a new game and giggling when I touched him.  I asked more questions.  Dizzy? No.  Tingling?  No.  Still hard to breathe?  No.<\/span>

So we checked out with the receptionist and headed home.  I dare them to bill me to sit on the chair in the waiting room.<\/span>

That night I felt wary.  What if I’d made the wrong decision?  I am constantly doing a mental juggling act … wanting to access the health care the boys need without a lot of unnecessary expense.  I love healthcare, but it is true that insurance and the probability of lawsuits have changed the way we look at what is necessary in some instances.  No one is infallible.  And one of my not-so-secret (ask David) niggling fears is that I will miss something important in spite of my vigilance.  We were barely out the door before we encountered steps and he took them very slowly.  “Why are you going slowly, does your back hurt?”<\/span>

“No.”<\/span>

“Then why do you want to go slowly?”<\/span>

“So, it doesn’t.” I nearly turned around and walked back in the double doors. <\/span><\/p>\n

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I had the feeling I was being masterminded once again by the child who thinks nothing is ever wrong and who can cover up pain that would have some children screaming.  I had a little chat with him about being honest about pain and how that injuries that are not taken care of well when they happen can cause big problems later in life.  And I also gave him very strict orders to tell me if he ever felt the slightest bit of shortness of breath or tingling in his legs.  And it felt like I was constantly saying, “No running, no climbing, no jumping.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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(Unfortunately I am the only one in the house sans rain boots so I wore my yucky yard work shoes.  And ta da! Sometimes being without ends up being a very *good* thing!)<\/font><\/p>\n

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Sunday he and Liam were acting like lion cubs and it made me nervous.  We opted to hike to keep him vertical instead of tumbling and to maintain our own sanity.  It was the most fun thing we’ve done in eons!  The boys had the time of their lives splashing through mud puddles, wading across creeks, and throwing stones in the water.  <\/span><\/p>\n

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On Monday, we went to see the pediatrician.  Diagnosis: minor concussion and probable broken rib.  <\/span>

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So we’re taking it easy this week since he’s not supposed to bike or engage in any other activity where he might fall and no playing with other kids because of getting jostled to avoid re-injury.<\/span>

We’re reading lots of books.  The boys play fireman and train and truck and construction.  Aside from a terrible Monday morning taken up with re-learning how to play with each other, we’ve been having so much fun.  My heart just melts into butter when I see them sitting side by side at the kitchen table having a meeting about camp.  Adam says, “This one will cost fifty cents and this one will be $40,000.  And this….” as Liam interrupts, “Hey, dust ‘ait {wait} a ill {little} bit.  I need to talk to du baby,” and then turns his head to talk to his imaginary child. “Otay, ou {you} dan {can} talk now.”  <\/span>

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I’ve got to run.  Adam is painting a picture and I promised I’d join him and do one, too.  Goldi had puppies last night and needs to be checked on again.  And it’s time to make sure the chickens are still out of the flowerbeds.  Wait.  How did I turn into something so similar to a farmer’s wife?  <\/span><\/p>\n

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First Grade is history!  Adam smiles hugely a few times a day and says, “I’m a second grader now, Mommy.” He could hardly wait for school to be over so… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-8n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}