June 28th

I'm grateful for...

Much protection, wisdom, and care for Ezra over the past two days. It's so hard to believe this whole saga with his leg has only be about 60 hours.

If you look at my last post, I said that Ezra's foot was fine. Well, I wrote that while he was napping. When he woke up, it became clear that it wasn't; he couldn't stand on it and was in pain. :(

I called my mom and Aaron. Aaron suggested calling the pediatrician. They wanted to see him right away, and from there, sent us to the ER, with a 90% chance something was wrong. :(

We arrived at the ER around 3:30 Thursday. Aaron got there close to 4, I think. It was around 4:30 when we went back to a room (the ER was much busier this time than last). Around 6 something we went for xrays. Then we came back to the room, Ezra fell asleep nursing, and we watched the Waltons on the TV in the room.

Around 7, some people (including the nurse practitioner) came in and started talking about splinting. I asked if it was broken since that seemed the case but I guess no one had thought to tell us. Actually, his foot was fine...it was his leg that was broken...his tibia to be precise.

Wow. We had a son with a broken leg. So much for being on the verge of learning to walk!

They decided that since Ezra was pretty terrified of the medical personnel, they'd give him a few drops of fetanyl nasally so that he'd feel more relaxed. Hmm, he seemed more relaxed in my arms, but definitely hated having his leg splinted.

Around 8 pm we were discharged and started home. I was pretty scared, because they told us Ezra would not be able to put weight on his leg (so no standing or crawling) for 6 weeks. Eek! As soon as we got home it became clear how difficult this would be, as Ezra was ready to get down and start playing right away.

The next morning (Friday), we were whisked into the orthopaedist's office first thing in the morning. They said they would try to fit us in but they saw us so quickly! We were blessed. I liked the doctor, too.

We picked a blue cast for Ezra after debating between orange (my first thought because Aaron likes it!), green (again, an Aaron favorite), blue, and red (a color Ezra seems drawn too.) I know it's selfish but I picked blue because I like it on Ezra and it would match many of his outfits. It's nice too...a bright color without being obnoxiously obvious!

The best news was that Ezra is able to move around as much as he wants, which was a huge change from what we were originally told. Praise the Lord!

So far, these days have gone better than I could have imagined. Ezra is coping well, and really doesn't seem to be in much pain. I'm still giving him Motrin just in case.

We have been doing some "extra" fun things for him too. He learned to color the day after he broke his leg (Friday). It's adorable. He's still working on not eating the crayons!

Yesterday I think Ezra had a pretty fun day. It started out with a trip to the local farmer's market with mommy. There, we ran into some friends of daddy's, and got to see their family's baby chicks. We looked around for a while, learning colors and feeling different textures at the farmer's market stands, before finally settling on some yellow squash (an Ezra favorite), a purple pepper (simply because we'd never seen such a thing before!) and a loaf of cinnamon swirl bread from the newfound friends.

Next, mommy and daddy had to get the car inspected, so Ezra came along. While the car was in the shop, we took a mini detour / date to a local cupcake place where we had a great deal to get cupcakes together.

We went back home for a while, and Ezra napped while I cleaned up and ate lunch and worked on a project for his birthday.

We had to hurry back to the car shop to get the car picked up in time. After that, mommy and Ezra ventured over to a nearby town to buy some balls from another mommy for $2. We must have gotten over a dozen, and it seemed a special treat for the poor little guy...a consolation prize for his broken leg shall we say. (Balls fascinate him, and we think he is starting to call anything he is interested in "balls.")

Ezra and I sat on a blanket in the yard, playing with his new balls and dumping them out of his dump truck, while Aaron took the shed doors off to repair them. Next, it was off for a family trip to Lowes when daddy needed new screws. We also picked up some paint tape for a small project we're hoping to get done in the next couple of weeks.

Finally, in the evening, we went out to dinner, at Moby Dick's. They have such yummy gyro sandwiches. We had a deal where we could get $30 of food for $15, so we really stocked up and will have leftovers for Sunday's lunch. We took our food to a new place, a local lake, for dinner, and watched the geese, passerby, and dogs large and small.

While we were at dinner, a couple with a little baby came walking by, and noticed Ezra's cast. We chatted about it a bit, the dad admitting that he too takes his little one down the slide on his lap all the time, and even that her leg had been caught once, though she was fine. He asked Ezra's name, we told him, and he thought it was very cool. Then, he offered to pray for us! It was the sweetest thing ever!

When we returned home, I started settling Ezra to bed. He unfortunately has gotten on a late schedule where despite my best efforts to the contrary, he doesn't take his afternoon nap until around dinnertime. So, he was still awake when the local fireworks started going off. We actually have a perfect view of them from our neighborhood, so we all three stood at the end of our road, gazing at the sky. Ezra was definitely not scared, but was more interested in the nearby grass and bushes and trees (he loves touching those types of things.) But when the grand finale finally went off, he was awestruck. I wish I had a picture of his face aglow with the light of the fireworks, mesmerized in childish wonder!