love always you must…

“Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.”
Yoda

(a screen shot from my son’s televison / Julie Cook / 2020)

You might be wondering where I’ve been…or not.

It was supposed to just be a weekend visit.
Up to visit the grandkids.

I got to the daycare just following “something” having happened.
The owner was on the phone with a mom and she seemed very nervous
while trying to explain this “something” to the mom.
She looks up and tells me she’s talking to my daughter-in-law.

That sickening feeling hits my stomach.

What something??

Autumn fell.

She fell back, having pulled away from one of the assistants and fell onto her elbow.
Now her arm wasn’t “working”.
It was hanging limp at her side.

And I knew immediately that something was indeed wrong when they brought her out to me—
she just stood there staring at me…
not her typical jumping, running and squealing when she sees me.

Once I got them loaded up in the car, I called my daughter-in-law telling
her that I did think she should be seen.

We drove down to the pediatrician’s office meeting my daughter-n-law.

The doctor tried “manipulating” the arm, thinking it was dislocated—
which immediately sent Autumn wailing with pain.

But the doctor didn’t feel that the arm was “popping” back into place.
She sent us to the ER for x-rays.

No breaks showed up thankfully but the doctor wanted
us back in the office Saturday morning.

Autumn’s arm hung limply by her side for the remainder of the evening as she readily
made quick use of her left arm seemingly unphased.
But each time we tried bending the arm when taking off her shirt and putting
on her pajamas, she would cry.

Saturday morning, we were at the doctor’s office bright and early.
She tried popping the arm back into place but was unsuccessful.
She attempted putting the arm in a sling—that went over like a lead balloon.
A 23-month-old and a sling are not friends meant to be.
We were next scheduled to meet with a pediatric orthopedic Monday morning.

(The puny Mayor in her short lived sling with “ma” / Julie Cook / 2020)

Little by little over the weekend, we noticed Autumnn started using her arm a bit more
sparingly and gingerly.

The ortho doc said that the elbow could be fractured as the x-rays did not
focus on the elbow but rather the bones in the arm…the humerus, radius, and ulna
but he did not see a dislocation and doubted it was fractured.

He said it was a classic Nursemaid arm and that each day we should see improvement
as the arm probably did most likely “pop” back and was simply sore.

I headed home late Monday evening.

As a grandmother, I know that this will be the first of many calls…
calls about slips, spills, and falls.
Some will be scary, some will be minor and some will stop our hearts…

Oddly, during all of this, the Sherrif however never seemed phased by his sister’s mishap.

(the sheriff just happy as a clam / Julie Cook / 2020)

All I know is that there is no better place I’d rather be than in a big chair watching
cartoons with the two little people who I adore….dislocated or not.

Love always we must!

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8