William started attending daycare last week. The owner is keeping an eye on him herself and we have tailored his return around her vacation. He went a half day on Monday and Tuesday then a full day on Wednesday. MaryVic went half a day on Monday and for a full day on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Drop off on Monday was awful. MaryVic went to class with no fuss after getting hugs from Momma and William. William who had been ignoring all talk of his imminent return to ‘school’ on Monday tried to keep on going past his classroom. There was no coercing him into the room and no one wanted to make a bad association by forcing him through the gate. Finally, the owner pulled just a little and I pushed just a little and he scooted past the gate. He had been quietly saying ‘no’ to all our entreaties…play with your friends, color, get the tractor, etcetera. The volume increased noticeably when the gate closed and he went to bawling. I sat in the office for 20 minutes listening until the owner came to talk to me. We agreed to see if he would go to breakfast and if not I would leave work to retrieve him. No one was going to pick him up and carry him, he had to get up and walk. Right then, he was laying on the floor refusing to do anything. “NO!”

He did perk up and had a nice time. He was quite happy to see me at 12:30 and didn’t really want to wait for his sister to get out of the lunch room. He would point at the door, take a few steps, and look back at me, annoyed at his escape being delayed. We all went home, took naps and had a nice afternoon.

Tuesday, both of them went to class without fuss. MaryVic was excited to see her class was in with Williams. She went through the gate while I whisper hissed, “Mary, grab your brother’s hand!” She turned around and said, “William! Come On!” He ran on in after her, pausing to enthusiastically wave bye to me. I ran!

I picked him up at 12:30. I had time to chat with the owner who said he was much doing better than she expected. There was one piece of the playground equipment they were not letting him get on but it was more them not being ready for him to be on it. William was happy to see me again and we spent another afternoon at home.

MaryVic wanted both parents to pick her up so William and I waited for Greg to come home before getting her. Of course, she then fussed about being picked up late! Fortunately the distress didn’t last long since it was Tuesday night and time for the weekly visit to see Cow at Chik-Fil-A.

William’s special balloon surprise. It was slow when we got there so Sean Hughes the Balloon Guy made more elaborate balloons for the children present.

William loved his balloon man and couldn’t decide which way to wear it.

Minnie Mouse ears were very popular with the girls.

The Cow is a ham and cut up with Greg some. He really interacts with customers, stealing milk, asking for phones and cameras, and high-fiving everyone. He does like to have his picture taken.

Wednesday William went to class without a problem, waving bye to me. MaryVic was unhappy despite big hugs from Mom and brother. Unlike before the ‘break’, William gave her a huge hug each day. He stayed all day at daycare. I was worried he would be fussy after nap. We had a note from the owner about trying Tuesday through Friday of the following week.

William was tired each day and we made sure he had a warm bath with epsom salts at night. Otherwise there were no issues.

The daycare did move the teacher who was in the room when the break occurred, to caring for a different age group. The new teacher is the one he had prior to being moved to the 2 year old room. The trucks the children were pushing have been removed from the room.

Now for some pictures of our time at home…

I couldn’t resist taking these pictures of the kids waving bye to Daddy on Friday morning. MaryVic had been borrowing my bedroom slippers but the slippers were upstairs. I let her borrow some of the shoes I had stashed in the pantry and William snagged a pair too. They clattered around for part of the morning before returning the shoes to me.

And that’s all the pictures I have of them at home!

Everyone at work has been super nice and welcoming my return. I am still on intermittent FMLA leave until the first or second week of June. The first full week at daycare for William will be the first week of June. This lets me have the flexibility to be available should any issues arise. Currently I have no sick leave so once I’m off FMLA completely, Greg gets to be the point man for child care. Sick leave accrues at 8 hours per month so what are the odds that the kids will get sick in the first month of daycare?

Thankfully everything has worked out in all areas of our family life from my job, my availability to care for William, Greg’s ability to provide for our family when my income went to nearly nothing, toys from friends and family to entertain the ‘stuck’ little boy, little mother MaryVic, the return to normal going smoothly so far, and many other things big and small. Hopefully everything will continue to progress in a positive manner. Now that our time will be more crunched between work and the home front, I anticipate that our blogs will be less frequent although I hope we can pause and share our lives with our family and friends on the weekends. Maybe at naptimes like now!

William’s next appointment with the doctor is May 27. His leg will be x-rayed to be sure it has healed or it is continuing to heal well. We are not anticipating any problems and will be sure to let everyone know what the doctor says about it.

She had him pull her around the dining room and down the hallway. He was hauling her while scooting on his bottom. Then he saw her little red radio and stopped. She didn’t feel like sharing at the moment or was mad because he stopped and he cried when she took it away. He just curls up into a little ball on the floor.

I gave him the play stroller and he was happily distracted by giving baby Pooh a ride.

The interesting thing about him using the play stroller is you can see when he gets tired. He’ll lean forward too much and start popping wheelies.

We took the strollers, his and the play one pictured above, and walked down to the ponds yesterday. When he got tired he would ride in the stroller and I’d load the play stroller under it. Took some arranging since it doesn’t fold up but doable. He pushed Pooh from the house to just past the pool house then rode to one pond where we fed the fish. He then pushed pool past the other pond before needing to ride the rest of the way home. There was some walking back and forth in front of the house before he decided I actually knew where the ponds and fish are. He also played in the pool house parking lot for a little bit. There is a slope there so he may have worn himself out on it and needed the rest afterwards. I may go back with the big wheel and see if he’ll scoot and ride down the slope there.

There was only one minor crisis and it ended as soon as I realized the problem was Pooh Baby was not fastened in the stroller. Once William had his baby secured, we were good to go.

MaryVic went to school Tuesday. We’re having paperwork issues and now have to redo all the paperwork for her as the deadline for renewal has passed. I guess we’ll also have to redo all of William’s paperwork too when he starts back. We tried retyping the contract to include verbage about attendance as William improves but it didn’t look the same as everyone elses even though it was the same wording and she said she’d get in trouble with the state. She did apologize for the trouble. They still kept MaryVic but I guess that’s because we have 10 days paid already. I’m not sure how many days she has attended already but probably not all of them yet.

I was in the kitchen Monday morning and heard shrieks which always require investigating. They were watching Cat in the Hat on the computer and William had decided it was more fun to spin MaryVic in the office chair. She was more than glad to let him because hey, a little brother has to be good for something!

And she reaps the benefits of all the upper body strength he developed while in the spica cast.

He enjoyed it as much as her.

It was unusually cold Monday morning but pretty. I took the kids to the library despite the temperature. Here they are playing on the preschool computers in the children’s department before Toddler Time. They had a good time at the storytime about Bugs!

After Toddler Time we went up to Momma’s office where she has some neat things like balls and slinkies.

And oooo… bookmarks!

Bookmark or ball?

Momma needs help. Look at this mess!

Yes, this needs to go.

and it does.

Then there are two helpers and then the shredder gets unplugged!

Monday continued with rounds in the library to visit co-workers, lunch with Daddy and then home for naps. We stayed in the rest of the day although MaryVic campaigned to go to the indoor pool. It is not heated so Momma vetoed pool visits. William did walk in the library a little bit while holding on to Momma and while holding on to Daddy with one hand in the evening! We have him climbing the stairs at bedtime now, all 16 steps.

On Tuesday MaryVic went to school so Momma did some cleaning. First she moved everything into the den and playroom to mop. William watched a show after he tried to climb a chair and get on the coffee table. The subsequent scolding sent him to climb up on the bathroom stool where he perched the whole time I was mopping.

Daddy came home from lunch and left the van. William took his nap and then we were off to get sister.

Everyone was glad to see him out of the cast although he took one look at Ms. Cathy and promptly hid from her, tucking his face into my neck. He perked up and then played spider on Momma while I talked to her. We found MaryVic in her class. Apparently everyone got the memo and all the little girls were in a pink outfits and the only boy was in a blue polo, very cute.

Ms. Cathy gave us a gift from Williams class. She told Greg and I about it weeks ago. She said it took forever to dry. The kids stepped in paint and walked on the paper. The teachers wrote the children’s names next to the footprints at different places on the sheet. A cute idea and it was sweet of them to think of him. I do have to laugh at the irony of it though.

She gave the roll to MaryVic to carry, ‘Can you carry William’s gift to the car?’ or something like that. All I know is William heard his name and started shrieking at the fact sister was touching something of HIS! So William got to carry it to the car. It was long enough that both of them had to hold it in their laps on the way home which William tolerated. He couldn’t wait to get it unrolled. I kept hearing paper noises and finally there was the rip.

We made it home with it mostly intact . MaryVic carried it in via the front door while I unloaded William and he pouted about it. I kept them from destroying it during the unraveling process. William promptly crawled all over it repeatedly. MaryVic crawled around with him too. At first he fussed about that but decided it was more fun to play with her on it.

Just a picture taken while waiting for Daddy to come home so we could all go see the cow!

We had dinner at Chik-Fil-A. The balloon guy was astounded to see William out of his cast. He really is very nice and made a big deal of it. He made William another special balloon with lots of twists. A race car balloon! MaryVic got a balloon wand with which she proceeded to attack the cow. Literally, I had to go get her at least twice and pull her away from cow. Momma, I’m hitting him on the nose! Yes, I saw that and you need to stop or cow is going to start going the other way when he sees you! And he did, unfortunately, so we had William at our table, “Coow! No…Cow!” So no cow high fives for William. Cow took a break right after that and it was time for us to go.

The next couple of days are supposed to be nice so we’ll be shooting for the park, indoor pool and zoo before Friday when it is supposed to rain again. Greg has added Twitter to the web blog. I input where we are which I was doing via Facebook. I’ll be able to input it via Twitter and it will update my Facebook page and the blog page. It seems pretty nifty.

Ah sweetie, Mommy and Daddy had to stay because William hurt his leg and it took a long time for the doctor to fix it.

Why does he have to wear the cast? To help his leg get better. I wanted to snuggle you and missed you *sob*

Mommy and Daddy missed you too but we thought you would have fun with Matthew and Connor.

I wanted to sleep at home! We did too honey.

I was a little surprised at the declaration more than 2 weeks after the event. The only thing I can think is that she became worried because I told her that both brother and mommy have doctor appointments on Tuesday so she needed to go to school.

She was quiet sincerely upset about being parent-less that evening although we knew with our friends she’d have a good time and be okay. I remember Greg and I discussing one of us going back and home but she was asleep at our friends before or just after William got out of O.R.

She must have been more worried than we realized although I don’t know of anything else we could have done. Just broke my heart to hear her talk about this insecurity though.

She snuggled up with Daddy afterwards and fell fast asleep. We’ll just see how easily she goes to school today.

Not very easily. She cried, and tried her best NOT to get out of the car. Honestly, it’s the first time she’s actively turned away from me, and tried to stay in the car. Much hugging, and kissing in Daycare, but an awful lot of crying when Daddy was leaving.

She’s rather enjoying this Mommy time instead of going to school. Going to school is now disrupting her schedule, and it’s not something she’s happy about.

William and I had breakfast and then he sat in a baby vibrating chair while I showered. He was really good. We came downstairs and did tummy time. Played cars, ball and blocks until Daddy came home for lunch. We had lunch and loaded up for the follow-up trip to the doctor.

The doctor visit went quicker than we thought. We were in and out of x-rays and talking to the doctor in 15 minutes. Everything looks to be going well. The bone still is obviously broken in the x-ray but together and the doctor was very pleased with how it looked. He told us that the next visit would be the one that decided if the cast needed to be adjusted or a new one applied, etcetera. He did say if things stay the same, it is highly unlikely they will do anything to the cast.

Then he started talking more about after the cast comes off. Greg and I have slightly differing perspectives on the discussion but it doesn’t matter because we can ask more next week and however it long it takes William to recover, it will take that long. I had been thinking that he might be up and around in 2-3 weeks, walking again. I guess I also thought the healing process would alleviate any limp too. I was a little taken aback when the doctor said 6 weeks or longer to walk again, talking about rolling, crawling and pulling up. And yet again, when he said there would be a pronounced limp but it would alleviate over time with his normal growth rate to next to nothing.

I guess I was being overly optimistic about things and got a reality check. Greg thinks William could still walk again in 2-3 weeks and the limp will be gone in just a couple of baby growth spurts. Ah well, mothers worry…and this one will look for more on the web about it.

We took William to Home Depot afterwards and looked at ceiling fans with lights. William is in favor of replacing the bonus room fan with the earth light and fan with rockets. I’m afraid we’ll be going with something a bit duller

We went to daycare and picked up MaryVic who had a good time at school. Mrs. Kathy came out to see William. She reminded me that gymnastics is on Thursdays and dance on Mondays. MaryVic is only signed up for gymnastics but sometimes attends dance on Mondays to make up for missing a gymnastics class. She said they are making a huge card for William. The kids are putting their footprints on it so it was currently drying. Apparently a major production, toddlers with paint on their feet, and now that I think about it, a little ironic? Sweet thoughtfulness though. She said they pray for him at daycare at breakfast and lunch.

I got an email from Nashville Parent while waiting for Greg to get MaryVic. Seems I won the February drawing and we have two weeks to come pick up our dvds, Charlie Brown’s Valentine and a Bob the Builder dvd. I had to laugh when Greg joked I should have bought a lottery ticket. I think this may be one of the few drawings I’ve even won.

William fell asleep on the way home. We were home for just a little bit then loaded up again to go to Costco and then our favorite Tuesday night hangout, Chik-Fil-A. The kids had a blast. The balloon guy made William a super duper Mickey balloon hat that he loved and MaryVic got a dolphin. MaryVic played in the playground and danced and sang. She even dragged Daddy up there to dance with her. She really got into the music and all this time, letting her ice cream melt until it was tossed. William wiggled and danced along to the music too. We took tons of pictures with our iphones so we’ll have to see how they turned out.

You would think the kids would have been tired through and through but no… We finally got William down and I had to go snuggle MaryVic. Finally both of them were asleep for the moment if not the duration.

To say that she didn’t want to go might be understating the case a bit. Tears, crying, and general shyness. Everyone has been asking about her, everyone (teachers and kids) was thrilled to see her, she gets to go to Gymnastics and (probably) Dance. It’ll be great!

But it’s not staying home with Mom.

Poppa came up last night and both kids were thrilled to see him. William promptly let him know that he was ‘stuck’. He brought William two new toys and a little gift for Mary from friends in Arab. MaryVic ‘helped’ William open them. He is getting a bit possessive though and if he could hear her playing with the new baby boom box toy, he’d start fussing.

All is well, I was over my bug on Saturday. MaryVic is a little needy due to all the attention William has to have right now. Greg has been working on the light switches at the house and they are ‘automated’ to a degree. We can change them on and off from the computer. I have to say that the motion detector in the garage is pretty cool. It automatically turns the lights on when you walk in there.

What’s really funny about the new switches is that if the lights do go off, the first word out of the kids’ mouths is ‘Daddeee!” If he is around, William will start going ‘dark, dark, dark…’ until they are turned back on.

MaryVic has dance class then we’ll try taking William out to lunch and Costco for his first outing. We wanted to try going out to the library yesterday but it rained all day.

We’re trying to decide about MaryVic going to daycare while I’m home with William. I would just hate for her to come home with a bug and us get sick since flu season is still going on. We may try a day or two a week though and take a friends suggestion to take her straight to bath when she gets home.

FYI, there have never been any bon-bons in the house.

Jeff finalized FMLA today. So, it appears that she’ll be home with William (and Mary for the majority of the time) for the 6 weeks. Spoke with HR, disability only works if I’m injured so just straight fmla. Worked for 3 hrs and visited with co-workers. Will be working some from home but care of William is primary so we’ll just have to see what I can do.

Searched for Car seat strap extenders. Turns out, Britax teamed up with a company called snugseat.com, and they produce a spica cast compatible car seat. $500. This is truly an example of highway robbery. The Normal Britax’s are expensive, but this is ridiculous, especially when we have a usage life time of a few weeks. And of course, with that product on the market, there are no extenders or longer straps available.

It’d be one thing if this was a hugely different product, but based on the illustration, they take a Boulevard seat, add longer straps, cut away the leg wings, and add a back pillow. I’m not even certain they cut away the wings. Annoying. I don’t know what we’re going to do.

William had another medical appointment setup for the 17th of March on an unrelated matter. We’ll see if that goes forward or not. It should be interesting if we keep the appointment. We also have got to call Daycare’s insurance tomorrow. The apt on the 17th is canceled so one less thing to worry about it.

Kids went down pretty well tonight. No screaming meanies, and only a little fussing during the move. I think the nap made a difference. He woke several times during the night with Grandmomma. He needs to be reassured that someone is there. He didn’t take any pain medicine, even otc and I think we will be giving him some Weds. night (hindsight the following morning).

– © MARY VIC, 2008.

All of my teaching is starting to bear fruits. MV grabbed the camera from Grandma, and started to snap away!

Spent a large part of the morning doing some research, everything from childcare licensing requirements to SPICA care and feeding. Grandma came up. I’m surprised she was able to hold out this long. She brought a blowup chair that we thought would be good for the configuration of his cast, but it just wasn’t stable with him in it. However, it was Pink with Princesses on it. Plus it has a color changing LED inside. So it’s not like someone in our family isn’t going to grab it immediately. I was surprised she didn’t try to pull it out from under him to begin with. She hadn’t seen the Princesses at this point, so that’s probably why.

We setup the appointments for William’s followup visit. 3 weeks of Vanderbilt on Tuesday. We can only hope that all is going well. The first one is next week. I’m sure there will be chastising of our care. It’s not that I feel like we are doing a bad job, it’s just I’m sure that there is SOMETHING that we could do better.

You do something better when all he wants to do is get OUT of that thing (pushing down on the cast and crying “Stuck, STUCK”. If it wasn’t so sad, it’d be pretty darn funny.)

Took William out for a walk… That was a hit. He seemed to really enjoy getting out of the house.

Yes, that’s a wagon designed by committee. It’s not pretty, and we’ll need to work on the support and stabilization aspect. I think some good gas shocks , five point harness and maybe some train horns are in order.

But he was pointing at runners, Ducks, and anything else he could see. It was 20 minutes because Mary had to go to the Dr., but he definitely enjoyed it. We’ll be doing this again. I had to stop with Mary and take her in the van, but Jeff and Grandma took him up for a bit longer.

Mary is doing ok, but ever since last week, she’s been coughing up a storm at night, and randomly coughing during the day. When we took William to the Pediatrician, He told us to bring her in Saturday and they’d get her a prescription to help out. Of course, 20 minutes after that conversation we saw the fracture, and that pretty much sealed the end of our Weekend. But since Mary was still coughing, Jeff made her an appointment, and I executed to that appointment.

We got to the clinic, and it was packed. Mary enjoyed playing around in the waiting room, looking at the fish and tapping on the glass. The lady sitting next to us was quite taken with her, and we struck up a conversation. I mentioned that it wasn’t this packed on Friday, and explained about William. Shortly before we went in the back, she had passed through and had came back with two sealed Dvd’s from an children’s artist – a friend of hers. “I know he’ll be in the cast for quite a while, and hopefully this will help entertain him some.” I was extremely touched by this. It was completely unexpected, and a very gracious act.

Mary was a bit shy with the doctor, but warmed up. We got a prescription to take care of her cough, and it does seem to have helped quite a bit… I haven’t heard her cough tonight. She fell asleep going to Target to get the script filled, so my shoulder got another workout today carrying her around.

We did not have a good night getting everyone down tonight. Mary was goofing off at the foot of the bed, fell off and bumped her toe. Looks up at me (Did he see me do that? yes? AAAAAHHA !!! ) “You did that yourself, and I’ve been telling you not to. Come here settle down.” AAAAAAAHHHHH! Grandma! I’m hurt too, pay attention to me now! – She seemed to say. Of course, William has not been cooperating with anything tonight. He was pretty fussy during the washcloth bath, so I went and got his lortab. We’ve tried to get him to go to sleep a few times now, and every time we think we have it, he’s woken up crying, screaming and being VERY upset.

I finally was able to move him into his crib, but it took me and Jeff. I moved him, Jeff managed to calm him when he woke up after the move. He’s woken a few times now. He didn’t get a significant nap today, and may be overtired. We’ll definitely try to get that tomorrow. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a good night.

And now, they are talking storms tonight. I think Jeff’s Blood pressure medication is going to have to be renewed if this keeps up. It’s a tight squeeze in that bathroom with 4 of us… Now let’s consider William’s cast, AND Grandma.

Positive thoughts. Tomorrow is another day, and a day closer to the cast coming off.

Thankfully the storms went south of us. I don’t know what happened. I came back downstairs to clean the floor and set up again for the next day and William was asleep. Next thing I know he’s screaming bloody murder, none of the 3 adults can calm him. He finally started screeching ‘BED!’ and I laid down with him and he fell asleep. We finally got him in his crib. I went running the first time he woke up, laid my hand on his little face and he closed his eyes, went back to sleep. Now when I tried to move my hand, he wrapped his arms around my arm and pinned it. After the first few times of this, Grandmomma took over soothing him down and we made it through the night. Greg and I were about ready to head back to the ER with him.