A Dislocated Elbow, Sleepless Night, and a Huge Blessing

Do you ever start off the new week more tired than you ended the last one? I'm supposed to be out running a 50-minute easy run (according to my training plan), but I'm not sure I have it in me.

Our wild (and wonderful: see Sunday) weekend started with my 19-month old having her right elbow dislocated at preschool. She was fine when I dropped her off, but when I picked her up they reported she had been fussy and they didn't know why. They'd checked her for fever---none. But she was crying and wanting to be held way more than usual. In the car I noticed she wasn't using her right arm. It was hanging limply at her side. We drove straight to the pediatrician's office. He was at lunch (it was 12:30), but came back early for us. A little twist, some serious crying, and it was back into place.

Unfortunately, I was all too familiar with this scenario. It happened THREE times in her 7th month, starting with ME dislocating it when taking off her snowsuit. Talk about Mommy Guilt. Apparently, some children are more prone to this and their elbow pops out of the socket very, very easily. And once it happens, they are more likely to have it recur in the 3-4 weeks afterwards when the ligaments are looser. It had been over a year since it happened, and I hoped we were done with this health issue. If only she had the words to tell us what was wrong. She suffered at preschool for somewhere between 1 and 3 hours. That breaks my heart. She knows "ouchie" and "boo boo," but she didn't know how to express, "Hey, my arm hurts." She was fine about 30 seconds after having it popped back in, thank goodness.

Then Saturday, I had a great 6.2 mile run (see below). Saturday night I had a date with my hubby. I didn't get in bed until 11:00 p.m., which is WAY late for me. About that time, Julia, the 19-month-old, decided that 7:30 to 11:00 p.m. was really more of a NAP for her than night-time sleep and she was now well-rested and ready to play. Chris and I both made trips up to her room, rocked her, read to her, but she was still wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. Finally, we had to do the dreaded CIO (cry it out) until about 12:30 a.m. It was tough listening to that on the monitor. But, we couldn't set a precedent of letting her run the show at night. We're third timers here; we know how this stuff works. As usual, with less than six hours of sleep, she was up at 6:00 a.m. on Sunday ready to go.

Sunday was a huge day in the life of our family. Our seven-year-old Nathaniel was baptised. He had been saved for a while, but had just made the decision two weeks ago to follow with believer's baptism. We were so blessed to have friends and family from far and near join us on this special day. My sweetest memory is seeing his little red head (and nothing else) sticking up out of the baptismal pool. He looked so small and sweet and child-like, which he is. As the oldest, we forget that sometimes.

Afterwards, our party of 16 waited for what seemed like hours at a nearby restaurant to celebrate the special occasion. The toddler was being... well, terrible, but it wasn't her fault. Lack of sleep, late lunch, lots of excitement, being off schedule, new and interesting people..... those are tough on a toddler. At 6:00 p.m. we said goodbye to the last of the family members and let out a collective sigh. Whew. Long day. But so good and one we'll always remember, especially Nathaniel.