Dat's Boke!

If it doesn't work the first time, or if it doesn't work the way Clayton desires, or if it doesn't work period, "Dat's boke, Mama." I think I hear this from Clayton about ten times a minute. Well unfortunately for Clayton's arm, dat's boke!

So here's the terrible mom part. I'm not exactly sure how this happened. There are a couple possibilities. I usually help Clayton in and out of his booster at the table, but last night, he started to get down before I could reach him. I watched in horror as he fell head first onto the tile. He got an enormous knot on his head, and I was worried, so my neighbor came over to help me decide what to do. We watched him for a while, and he seemed to get over it. A while later, she asked me if I thought he was nursing his right arm. I didn't, but she moved it around a little, and he seemed just fine with that.

Then this morning Clayton woke up on the cranky side of the bed. He was a crank all through breakfast, and then as he was dragging his whiny self through my room, he tripped and fell with his arms straight out. He screamed and screamed, but he got over it. He played a little, but he continued to be super cranky. I started to think he was nursing that arm a little. He was using it and moving all his fingers, but something was different.

I decided we had to go to the ER. As I signed in, Clayton had a little toy motorcycle that he was driving with his right hand (the side in question) all over the chairs in the waiting room. Surely the nurses at the check in thought I was over paranoid, and I was wondering why I'd dragged us all down there. The doctor came in and said we'd get an x-ray just to be sure.

Well, sure enough, he's got two broken bones in there. They are buckle fractures, which means the bones just buckled on themselves from the force. They splinted him up, and we see the orthopedist tomorrow.

I can't say how relieved I am that I took him to the ER. I just didn't know, and I don't want to be that mom who freaks out everytime their kid gets a little bump.

Clayton seems fine. The only time he's been upset since the ER was when I wouldn't let him ride the neighbor boy's razor scooter. I don't think we need anymore broken bones tonight, thank ya very much. They probably have a little red flag in our chart because I didn't know exactly how my son's arm got broken. It wouldn't look good to drag him back in there with yet another broken bone.

You have to admit, all sadness aside, he does look pretty cute with the splint and sling, don't you think?