First of many ER visits?

Greetings again! We've had an eventful day and I think the fastest way to answer any possible questions is to get the news out there. But we do things backwards from the evening news here - our top story is the least important! It is on top, and I was too. The living room is finally painted! If you look at dates on our posts, you'll see just how long it took me to finish.

Yes, I was afraid.


Grandma and Papa Phillips came for a visit and we went to the Wooden Boat Show/Crab Feed, the Lighthouse/Tide Pools, and the beach. (This picture is of Carter.) I got some of the pictures mixed up, but I think this is Papa at the Crab Feed.McKay and Papa relaxing in the morning. So here's the main story today: Carter broke his arm. REALLY broke it. Both bones, the radius, the ulna... all of it.

If you're squeamish, don't read the next sentence. Carter's forearm looked like it had two wrists a couple of inches apart. There was a bend in it where no bend belongs, as you can see from the next X-rayHere's the story: Carter likes to help out by throwing away McKay's dirty diapers. He thinks it's fun. He picks up the diaper, takes it to the diaper pail in the garage and then runs back in announcing his good deed to the room at large. This time after disposing of the stinkbomb, he missed a step on the stairs (the same set under the scaffolding in the picture at the top of this post) and fell end over end down the steps and stuck out his hand to stop his fall. That's what we think happened anyway - I was at work and Suzanne was putting McKay's pants back on in McKay's bedroom. She heard a series of thumps, then crying. She called me at work and my coworkers were kind enough to let me off for the rest of the day so I could sit in the emergency room with Carter. He was a real trooper - there was a small amount of sniffling, but he put on a brave face and only cried once when he got bored of lying there while his arm was being stretched back into place... He was BORED. The nurses (who all happened to be male) told him they were impressed with how tough he was and how brave. I was very proud of him.

The ER Doc had a nurse put on a temporary splint until we get to the orthopedic surgeon on Thursday, when his arm will be examined, maybe set (ouch!) and casted. Oh yeah, and he was pretending to be sad in the picture above. Acting was hard for him - he kept laughing. He really looked like this:

He's doing fine now. We're still trying to figure out what adjustments need to be made to his routine now that he'll only have one good arm, but he seems to be happy otherwise. We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, Suzanne and I are debating whether we should move to a house with no stairs, but Carter, Suzanne, and I all agree that it's time for McKay to be potty-trained.