Haiku Babies: First Break

On June 13, we had quite the exciting adventure to the Emergency Room. Richard and Shirley were playing Ring Around the Rosie while Daddy washed the dishes when he heard a crash and then a moan of pain and whimpering crying. Rich dropped what he was doing and ran into the living room to find RJ curled up on the floor. He picked him up and realized RJ was holding his arm very close to his body. Rich tried to remove his shirt to see if there was any damage, but the baby couldn't lift his hand or arm away from his body so Rich cut his shirt off (his only Nebraska Huskers shirt, bytheway...) to try to discern any damage. When he couldn't see anything wrong he called me at work and said, "You need to clock out and come home right now." That is NOT the kind of call any mother looks forward to getting at work. I could hear the baby crying in the background and I knew it was serious...you can tell by your children's cries when something is seriously wrong, and I knew something was seriously wrong!I raced out of work without closing up shop, raced home trying not to panic the whole way and walked in the door to find a completely dejected little boy. He had stopped crying until he saw me, when his sobs started again. We were discussing what to do when my sister walked in. I had called her on my way home to keep her "on call" in case we needed to go to the Emergency Room. She decided she'd rather turn around and go home if we didn't need her than make us wait for her to get there (are we blessed, or what?!).
So, we loaded up and rode to the hospital. I couldn't believe it--there was only one other family in the waiting room and we got right in to see the doctors. Both doctors assumed it was a dislocated shoulder or elbow, which I'll admit I thought, too, though they couldn't find any evidence. When the doctor finally crawled her fingers up his arm and he shrunk away from her touch she said, "I think we are going to have to do x-rays...this looks like a broken collar bone." It was what Rich and I suspected all along, but I guess we were hoping for something less traumatic.
In the end, our boy came home with codeine and an arm bandage and a broken collar bone. I was convinced our summer was over. RJ spent three days on the couch with his arm wrapped in a codeine stupor. We watched Cars, Cars2 and more CARS! A week later we made a trip to our regular doctor for a follow up. She took his bandage off, tossed it in my purse and told us to have a nice summer. Can you believe that?! She said there is almost nothing you can do to keep a two-year-old's collar bone from healing perfectly and that by the time he is ready for organized sports this injury will be a distant memory. We are so relieved and thankful!!
God protected us from something much worse and answered so many of our prayers along the way--too many to count.
Our summer has gone on undisturbed and RJ is completely back to normal now, eight short weeks later.