Year 3, February 24th-25th, 2018: Justin Broke His Arm!

I'm not sure what happened on Saturday the 24th, but I do know what crazy things happened tonight!  Justin broke his arm!  But let me back up to the beginning.  The whole day was kind of upside down.  I decided to watch Benaiah do his drumming gig in the middle school worship, but it was awkward because I didn't know how that worship service went.  They played two songs near the end, so I felt like I was intruding the whole time.  BUT, I did get to see him play and take pics and vids.  That means, I missed big worship.  Oh well, I'll listen to the replay later.  Then we ate lunch at the local Chinese restaurant with Leah and came home.  Abishai and Jared had naps, the middles had screen time, and Benaiah worked on his school projects.  Leah took Benaiah and I back to church for this evening activities.  Jared dropped off Keturah and Justin about an hour later and took Abishai to the airport to pick up Gary.  Then he dropped Gary and Abishai off to Gary's house to play and came to church.  Just a few minutes later, in walks Justin.....

Ok, here's the scoop: Justin was playing gaga ball and fell on his left arm.  He sat down on a couch for almost 45 minutes and didn't tell anyone that he had been badly hurt.  Mr. Ron Hittel (husband to one of my MOPS friends and father of one of Justin's new 6th grader friends, Sam) saw him wincing and asked him what happened.  And when he saw how swollen Justin's elbow had gotten, he called over another leader who is one of my friends and is a nurse, and she said yes, you need to go see your parents, I'm not going to even touch it.  Ron walked Justin down from the opposite side of the church building to Jared's office where Jared and I both were working on our computers and tells us the story.  I took one look at the arm and compared it to the other arm and said, "yup, take him to the ER, here's his insurance card, I'll get Mom or Dad to bring us home."  So off Jared went with Justin, in the van, WITH THE DIAPER BAG.  Whoops!  But poor Justin was in tears.  He didn't even take his jacket or water bottle or DS game console.

Meanwhile, I gathered up Keturah and Benaiah 15 minutes later and Gary picked us up and took us home and then brought Abishai home.  We then finished up the day by doing chores that hadn't been done earlier and setting up the couch bed for Justin so he doesn't have to climb up into his bed.  Benaiah continued working on his homework.  Jared and Justin got into a room very quickly after arriving at the ER, got an X-ray, and yes, it was confirmed that Justin had broken his lower left arm right near his elbow joint.  They gave him a huge dose of iburpofen which knocked him out for a bit.  They put it in a splint to stabilize it and it has helped him greatly.  And then gave them orders to go to Riley Children's Hospital because Justin is a small 12 yr old and they can better handle the next steps, whether it be surgery or something else.  Justin is hungry, thirsty, and tired because they won't let him eat or drink in case of surgery or what not.  Jared then drove him to Riley and they are waiting for a room.  It's been 4 hrs since Justin was brought to us at the office.  Gary retrieved the diaper bag, which had Abishai's paci and blankie in it, and brought it to us around 10:30pm.  I didn't even try to put Abishai to bed without his things, so he and Keturah cuddled on the couch watching Penguins of Madagascar.  Abishai very willingly went to bed once he had his paci and blankie.  And here I sit typing while Jared and Justin sit at Riley waiting.  Riley is the only children's hospital in Indiana, or it's the best, I can't remember, so he's in good hands.  Both my niece and my nephew have been in and out of Riley a lot, and I know many others as well.  Hopefully insurance will cover all of it and if not, we do have some tax money coming back to us this year, praise God.

We are thankful it's just a broken arm and that the ibuprofen and cast have stabilized the situation.  Justin was able to calmly talk to me on the phone, which is a great sign that he is handling it well.  He can get pretty wound up sometimes and end up very emotional.  But Benaiah was the one getting really wound up.  The first thing Benaiah wanted to know when I told him was how it was going to affect us financially.  And he was very, very anxious about if Justin broke his arm or not.  Benaiah was also a little mad that Justin didn't tell anyone right away.  Benaiah did say he was pretty anxious in general today because he was tired and he had homework to do and just felt a ton of pressure.  We talked about it and I told him that I understand that everyone in our culture is under some kind of pressure and everyone has some level of anxiety, but even my anxiety is not over the top and unbearable and needing a ton of treatment, so surely your anxiety is ok because you do have a lot on your plate today.  He's spent 12 hrs or more on his project for English class.  I'm very proud of him and his dedication to it! 

Keturah was a great help and kept Abishai occupied, as well as cleaned up the living room so I could vacuum.  They played policemen and redecorated Abishai's bike and ran around.  I'm so glad that we homeschool and we can all hopefully sleep in tomorrow.  I am going to try to stay awake for awhile, but it might be a very late night/early morning.  Thankfully, we have very little activities this week, so we'll recover just fine and have time for doctor visits if/when it's necessary.  What a whirlwind of a day!

Abishai went with Jared to get a tire fixed on Grandpa's car. He spent the whole time watching them change the tires and even put away his own toy cars he brought because they were distracting him.

There's a bakery nearby (not the new one I found) that sells gluten free and dairy free cupcakes on Fridays and Saturdays so Leah picked him up one!  It was incredible moist and tasted like a real cupcake!  The frosting was so thick that it made the cupcake top heavy.  And they even inserted some frosting in the middle!  Yummy!

Smallcakes, a Cupcakery.  Yes, it's a real thing, people are obsessed over cupcakes and how to decorate them.  It was really big, too!

Having fun at the grocery store on Saturday night after our dinner out at Chick Fil A and picking up Grandpa's car from the tire repair shop.  It rained most of the day as well as several days in a row this week (see the pics below).

"Of Mice and Men" bunkhouse.  Benaiah said he has burned the tips of all of his fingers from the all the hot gluing he's done.  But it looks awesome!

Almost done!  It's awesome!

This might be an exaggeration, but I kid you not, there's like 4-5 inches in there.  I'm pretty sure we've had 2-3 inches in the last few days.

Mr. Luke Green sharing the Bible lesson to the middle schoolers this morning.  He does such a great job getting down to their level.  He even did a fun experiment with yeast because they were talking about the passage of Scripture on the mustard seed and how working a little bit of yeast in the dough makes a huge difference.  They then wrote notes to pack with the snacks that had been donated for kids at a local elementary school to have during their test taking week.  Little things add up too big things.

You can barely see him because the lighting is poor, but there's Benaiah back there on the drums.  It was just a singer and Benaiah today, so they played the rest of the instruments through a sound track.  He was telling me all about how they can do that and how they have the beat ticking in their ear and they can even have it say, "chorus 1, verse 1, chorus 2" etc.  Crazy stuff!  All through their "in ears" ear buds.

Savannah is the oldest child of a good of mine and I've known her for about 15 years.  She remembers Benaiah as a little guy.  I love seeing how grown up these kids get!  Oh, and she's getting married this year!

Sweet baby was so out of sorts today.  He didn't go to Sunday School but sat in big church with Daddy while Mommy was watching Benaiah in the middle school room.  He seems so tired and maybe getting sick so we didn't push him to go to class.

Then later in the evening, Benaiah mixed sound for his Crave group and Ethan did the slides.  Best buds serving together.  I'm so proud of them!

The cutest little policeman you've ever seen!

The ears!  They pop out under that hat! Adorable!

Getting the bed ready for Justin.

And there's the break.  Sheered right off.  I think it's hard to tell exactly though.  The cast goes from his hand to halfway up his upper arm.  I'm guessing he's going to need some physical therapy to strengthen those tendons and muscles again.  Yikes!

Meanwhile back at the ranch, these kiddos got to stay up way past their bedtime.

Earlier on Saturday, this is what our flooded backyard looked like after 4 days of steady and/or heavy rains.  All the way from the back fence up to the firepit, in the firepit, in the dog chain area, etc.

Nasty flooded sidewalk.

Yes, there's a huge puddle under the shed!  That doesn't make me happy!  It seemed like everything was high and dry the other day when I was in there.  It still makes me nervous though.

Front yard.  And after a full day of sun and no rain, everything has settled down.

This may last a couple of more days though.  I just get pretty annoyed when Socks comes in all muddy and then lies down in Abishai's bed before he's fully dry and makes his bed stink.  I hope it stays dry for the rest of the week!  I know it will be dryer and warmer for the next couple of days at least.

Well, here I sit, waiting on news of the next steps for Justin.  He's a trooper and we'll get through this.  He's the first kid in our family to break a bone.  Jared has had two breaks, Benaiah and Justin both have had sprains, but that's it.  I'm choosing not to worry about it. My heart rate was up for awhile, but I wasn't emotional.  I do think on my feet fairly well in the moment.  I might have a good cry later, or maybe not.  It's just a broken arm.  Somebody was going to do it at some point.  Justin's got a great attitude and I'm sure he will recover fine.  It could have been way worse.  I'm glad we stick around during their activities, too, so leaders didn't have to go finding a phone number and call us.  We stay out of convenience, not because we think something's going to happen.  To be honest, I've never been a drop off and run kind of parent.  I just like knowing what my kids are up to because I'm curious.  And I like to blog everything, lol.  I know they are safe and I trust all the leaders and at least some of the kids, lol.  Well, we are waiting on the rest of the results and I guess we will be sharing that in the next blog now that it's midnight.  Good night!