A Lot Can Happen In A Week

So there we were...Tuesday night, after bath, 5 minutes before bedtime. I was being the cool mom I am and letting the boys get a few more minutes of jumping on the couch to show off their ninja skills. Zach had a rare night home early so I went, giddily, to the bathroom for the first time in a long time with no kids following me. Right when I closed the door I hear a yell. A scream, a plea, really. Daddy! Mommy! Daddy! It was Tariku and, though he has the tendency to overreact with the slightest owie, I knew we were in trouble. So I went out there and Zach says, "He broke his arm."

This is why he said that.



As you can see, his forearm is doing it's best to give us a "wave" which is altogether unnatural and extremely painful, I'm sure. So I asked Zach if I could stay with Tariku in the ER as I'm always the disciplinarian (that's the nature of a stay-at-home mom it seems) and so I wanted to be the comforter too. We were in the ER for 3 hours just to have them tell us it's broken (duh) and splint it. They then made an appointment for the next morning at the Orthaped clinic to get it casted. As strange as it may sound, we bonded intensly for 3 hours with no other siblings around and me having to fight off well-intentioned doctors and nurses overwhelming him with their big, fancy English words.

On top of that, I had to admit at least 20 times that I was willingly letting my kids jump off the couch. Then there was the social worker who came to ask me various questions about how I discipline and how he got scars and cuts that were obviously much older than the time we had him. This line of questioning even included them asking me about his toenails (which are admittedly not "normal" looking) which I had to tell them my best guess was that they were due to 3 years of walking around with no shoes on.

So with my mommy head between my mommy tail, me and my more bonded son headed home.

The next day was even crazier. He actually had to be put under to set the arm and cast so he got in his scrubs and his little surgery hat. They wheeled him away from us and into the operating room. Suffice it to say it was traumatic for us all.

He's recovering well though. Getting used to the extra 10lbs on his left arm so that's a relief.

As if that wasn't enough, Thursday morning brought my nephews to come stay with us. So the few days went well, it was nice to spend so much time with them. I was pleased when Eli cried and clawed for me when turning him over to his grandma. He also took a liking to calling me, "mommy" which I took to be a compliment.

Friday morning on the way to pick my sister up from the airport, 4 kids in the car, the tire on my car blows. Which, after putting the spare on, had to be taken to the car place to get a new one on. So my sister, myself and 4 kids were at Wal Mart for 3 hours.

Overall the week was incredibly crazy. Not one I would necessarily want to ever do again but there were certainly shining moments. I've retired my mom-of-5-hat and was surprised to realize it wasn't so much the sheer number of kids, but their ages. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I think that's more what it was than anything else. So I salute you, moms who do that on a daily basis!

Here are some pics of the week.