and suddenly it's winter

Okay, so it didn't happen suddenly, but it seems that way.  I've heard people celebrating that the days will be getting longer now, but I have to say I hadn't really been bothered or really noticed the shorter days.  I don't mind them so much.  I'm a home-body, I love to be cozy and snug.  And I love my slippers and comfy pants.  The dark afternoons add to the whole feeling for me.  Maybe because the sooner it's dark, the sooner my Rowdies will be going to bed?  Don't get me wrong, I love 'em to bits, but did I mention they are rowdy?!  The quiet, cozy evenings are just so nice.  I like not feeling like I'm wasting the daylight like in the summer.

My winterish french-bread-basket display.

As I've said before, we've been so busy with living life that I haven't had the time or energy to document it here.  I have still been taking pictures, but feel like this isn't a season of life that is going to be documented with as many words as it will be with pictures.

Here's a doozy of a picture!  This is the blister that was on Max's hand after one week in a cast that I thought was really poorly placed.  Ya think?! (Blurry, but you get the idea.)

The original cast that he got when he cracked his left wrist (on October 14th) was great, as far as casts go.  Compared to the "heavy load" of the plaster cast from when he broke his right arm (May 2008), this short, small fiberglass cast was no big deal.  That it was his left hand that was injured, and not his right, was a tremendous blessing.  Paul had taken him to the ER and handled everything.  He was given a sheet of paper about cast care and was told it could be removed after 3-4 weeks.  When he broke his arm last year, he was treated by an orthopedic surgeon and we received exceptional care from him.  I guess I assumed the situation would be the same for this injury.  That was not to be.  At the 2-3 week point this time around, I started making phone calls to find out how to go about getting the cast off.  I got quite the runaround from the hospital cast clinic who said they had no record of him and I should contact our family doctor.  Our family doctor staff had no record of the injury and said I should get in touch with the hospital.  Turns out that since he got the cast right in the ER, the cast clinic wasn't involved.  Long story short not so short ... I was told to go to the ER "in the morning" to have it x-rayed and have the cast removed.  Paul took him to get it off in the late afternoon on Sunday the 9th (3.5 weeks post injury), but as more and more people came in wearing face masks (in the midst of H1N1 hysteria), he decided to just come home.  My plan was to take him the next morning.  As it was a last minute effort, I wasn't able to secure babysitting arrangements for the younger two.  Oo, goody.  So off we went.  Little did I know that when the hospital says "in the morning", they mean something like 6:30 or 7:00 am!  We got there at about 9:40.  Despite our late arrival, it looked like our wait time wouldn't be long.  But theeeennnnn ... I started to notice that people who arrived after we did were being called in to see the doctor.  Hhmmm ... Our visit lengthened.  We had waited long enough to just stick it out, and just when I thought we'd be up next - we weren't next.  The boys behaved REMARKABLY well.  We walked around and around and around the waiting room, admired the vending machine, and figured out how to find Treehouse on the TV.  I even got Jax to fall asleep in my arms and laid him down in the stroller for quite a while.  Finally, a nice lady came to tell me that there had been a car accident that morning and they were dealing with that, which meant a delay in us getting to the people we needed to see.  She said it may be about another 30 minutes.  She spoke the truth, and we were soon on to the next step.  The ER doctor came quickly and set about to take the cast off.  That's the really tough part for Max.  It was really traumatic the first time, mostly from the noise and fear that the saw will cut his skin (even though we showed him many times that it won't).  He freaked out! That's when Jax woke up.  Great. To comfort them both, and make sure Marty knew he was special and important too - because he likes reminders of that! - that was tricky.  I was a bit annoyed that the Dr. was so quick and didn't talk to Max much about what he was going to do.  He was just sitting on a chair right by the desk and off it came.  Many, many screams of terror ensued.  As soon as the saw was turned off, so were the tears. Funny, that. He came out with several one liners to talk to the doctor, and they were both smiling.  Then the Dr. said Max had to get an x-ray.  This caused even more anxiety for Max, as it's really scary to think about moving his arm when it's been stuck in one position for so long.  I shuttled my little herd of turtles down another corridor so we could wait some more for the x-ray techs to be ready for us.  Thankfully, it was an empty area at the end of a hallway with room for Marty to run while I helped Max support his arm. Not sure what I did with Jaxon at the time.  Many minutes later and after lots of coaching the techs, they got the pictures they needed.  Back to see the Doc.  He looks at the pictures and says that it's not healed yet, and needs another two weeks in the cast.  Enter: THOROUGHLY UNIMPRESSED MAMA!  Obviously, I wasn't going to argue with him, but I was really puzzled.  Couldn't he have scanned through the cast, like was done with the plaster cast?  He said that the images aren't nearly as good.  We went back over to our spot on the chairs by the desk where he proceeded to hastily apply a new cast.  I was concerned about some chaffing on Max's fingers from where the padding had worn down on the first cast.  He said he'd be careful about that.  As he was wrapping, I noticed that the angle of Max's hand and fingers seemed really unnatural.  When I asked the Dr. about it, he said he wasn't done and would adjust it.  He didn't.  He squished it a bit to get it to contour his hand and arm, but the angle was really awkward.  I also noticed that there wasn't nearly as much padding as the first cast.  With this one, he couldn't even reach his fingers to his thumb to grab stuff.  I wasn't going to make a fuss and insist it be re-done, but I wasn't happy.  The next day I got a last minute appointment to see our family doctor.  He agreed with me that the positioning was very poor, and he couldn't imagine why the bone wasn't healed yet.  He hadn't seen the report from the x-ray the day before so couldn't say for sure, but said he should get it by the end of the week.  He said to call on Friday if they hadn't called me by then.  I called at 2:00 on Friday afternoon and got an answering machine saying they stop answering the phone at noon on Fridays.  I called again on Monday (maybe Tuesday) and got to talk to him. He said the bone was totally healed and to go ahead and get the cast off.  I don't remember if Paul took him that day or the next, but he got in at a good time and got it off on a quick ER visit.  The cast came off and revealed this angry, raw blister.  Paul was shocked, but the Doctor (not the same one who applied the cast) shrugged it off as no big deal.  Max had never complained about it so we had no idea it was there.  Seeing this wound after only one week in the second cast confirmed for me that it was a really bad wrapping job.  Max kept the cast, and there was, indeed, hardly any padding, and virtually none under the spot where the fiberglass was twisted to go between the thumb and fingers. We treated it for about 5 weeks (Polysporin and gauze-wrapped at night, unwrapped in the day) until the scab finally came off and it wasn't uncomfortable. It's still tender and a bit flaky, and I just remembered tonight we should be putting Vitamin E oil on it to minimize scarring.  

So there you have it.  I feel like I want to give some "feedback" to the hospital about the bad and seemingly unnecessary casting job, but I'm not quite sure how to go about that. Ideas?

Moving along ... 

Jaxon missed out on decorating the tree for his first Christmas, so he was happy to help with the task this year.

 

I have a cousin who is close to my age.  She has kids close to the age of my kids.  We are all quite fond of each other.  With both of our families moving to a new house this summer, and with sicknesses and school schedules, we haven't been able to visit for many months.  I realized quite late that Max had a non-instructional day at the end of November, so we arranged a last minute trip out to the big city for a short visit at their new house.  This is the only picture I got from our time together as the rest of our time was spent keeping Jaxon from sneaking up the stairs, snooping around the barns on their property, Max tasting brussels sprouts right from the stalk, and keeping 4 small children focussed on the task of WALKING AROUND THE BLOCK.  There were plenty of puddles, sticks, and neighbouring farms to distract them, so it was rather challenging to our patience reserves.  It was nice, but hectic, and we'll do it again.

 

We hurried home to get ready for special friends coming for a late dinner and visit on their way through town.  They are a bundle of blessing - those folks.  They came bearing gifts and cards.  We shared soup, biscuits, baby snuggles, PlayMobil (yes, the littles shared!), and many laughs.  She wrote a nice little summary on her blog. Go see. Read this post of hers too, because it's great.  For several days, Marty asked for "the stripey boy" (due to H's shirt) and Hosannah.  He now knows their real names, and he and Max still ask regularly to visit them.  Wish we lived close enough to visit regularly!

Oh, I see we also had pie.

 

Rowdy, I tell you.  Terribly rowdy!

 

Looking for that rowdy Usborne Books ducky.  Regular reading time is finally a habit in our house.  Max is highly motivated to write a number bigger than zero on his home reading chart for school.  Sometimes we don't get to reading, sometimes we get 30 minutes in.  I say 'we' ... it's mostly Paul and the boys.  He usually takes over their care and nurture after supper with reading, playing, tooth brushing, wound care (all done!) and finally Bible story and prayers.

 

Brazen rowdiness!  Blurry baby - not quite 1 year old - surfing on his poor rocking giraffe. 

 

The boy just loves to be wherever I am.  Stinky socks and all.

 

Phewf.  I'm tired.  This didn't even take us into December!  Will get to that next time, which I hope will be sooner than later.