Like a steel trap
This morning, as we slowly pulled ourselves together, it occured to me that I could not avoid the inevitable. Logan was actually going to need more new pants. I pulled out the final pair that would fit him and didn't currently reside in the hamper - olive green sweat pants that were actually a tad short on him. Drat. My memory of what he had left this spring had failed me. He was about 2 pairs of pants short to get him through a normal span between laundry runs.
I rounded up the troops. "Kids, we've got to do a little shopping." I figured we'd head over to our favorite stand-by: Target.
"I want to go to the other big Target," Logan said.
"Logan, there is only one Target around here," I replied, trying to figure out if I had taken him to another one at some point in his short life.
"No, there are two. I want to go to the one by Pizza Hut."
"Ah. I see," I say grinning. "Honey, that's not Target. That's K-mart." Then I ask him how he knows he wants to go there. I say how I'm not sure he's ever even been there before.
"Yes, I have," he says confidently. "That's where we got the cups for the toothbrushes. Remember? I lost the ball I got at Pizza Hut when we were shopping there."
I'm sure my mouth hung open for a moment. Holy crap, he was right. We had gotten the bathroom odds-and-ends there. . .A YEAR AGO when we re-did the bathrooms. And, he did lose a ball that day.
Remind me to watch what I say in front of him lest he decide to recall it during circle time sometime in April.
Trip to the ER
Last night Logan hopped down off his chair declaring he was done with dinner. He ran off down the hall to retrieve something or other he wanted to show Daddy and as he did so he said "ow." We asked if he was ok. He brushed us off annoyed at being questioned. He turned to trot back off down the hall to retrieve yet another thing. And that's when I noticed he was limping. Logan wanted to go out back and play baseball with Daddy. He wasn't happy to be told he couldn't go because his leg was hurting. He insisted it wasn't. And he tried to show us how much it wasn't by running. He fell to his left side.
He said it was his knee. And then it was in his calf. And then his foot. He told us the pain was shooting down his leg from top to bottom but only if he ran so if he walked to play ball it'd be ok. Instead we looked closely at his leg. No noticeable swelling. No bruising. We gave him some Tylenol. We gave him a warm bath. We put him to bed after stories.
He woke up Saturday morning and immediately announced that his leg hurt. He grabbed his left hip. He got out of bed to walk and started to crumble to his side when he tried to put weight on the leg. We carried him down the hall. We called the Pediatrician's answering service. They paged the doctor on call. Logan slid off the chair we had left him in and tried walking again. He did, but with a limp. The Ped called back. She asked us to bring him into the office for an eval. She thought we'd wait too long at the ER and that we could get the x-rays done at another place this morning. Meg went to Grandma and Papa's and we went to the doctor's office.
To calm Logan I told him how the doctor's we'd see were like Matt Medic - the Rescue Hero who is, surprise, surprise, a doctor. He told me he needed to get Matt Medic now to be brave. I told him we could talk about it. He said "Hey, I have an idea, let's talk about it now!" We didn't.
The doctor arrived and began poking at Logan's leg and watching his face for clues of pain. He told her where it hurt. He told her when it started hurting last night. He then showed her his mosquito bite on his right ankle and told her his leg hurt there also. I don't think she was nearly as amused by that as I was. She wrote an order for an x-ray. She talked about going to see the Orthopedic Specialist next week. (The one that we see for Megan's neck who I find to be arrogant and irritating.) She told us to first try the x-ray place in town for an appointment today and if that didn't work - head to the ER.
We ended up at the ER. Now, to those that don't know, the hospital in our area has undergone a huge renovation. What used to be the ER entrance is now Out-Patient. The emergency department has new digs. We, however, parked in the wrong spot and headed to the old spot because we came into the complex at an entrance not conducive to getting to the right spot. (Got that?) We asked the security guards what the best way to get down to the emergency dept was. They sent Bruce back to the parking garage to move his car to the "free" ER lot and then one of them escorted Logan and me to the right place through twists and turns in the building. The guard looked at me carrying Logan and told us to wait. He got Logan a wheel chair to ride in. Logan loved that part. He also got a pack of crayons and a new coloring book all about the hospital. As we traveled down a floor to the right area of the building, Logan chirped "Wow! I've never ridden on a wheel chair in an elevator before! This is fun!" The security guards were amused by him. Logan then told us all that he didn't want an X-ray because it would hurt. The very nice older guard leaned down to talk to him. He showed Logan his badge and told him that the hospital took his picture and put it on the badge and it didn't hurt one bit. He said that the X-ray would be just like that picture - wouldn't hurt. AND then he said that if anyone did hurt Logan, he was to come find this guard and let him know who did it, because they'd have to answer to the guard. Logan liked him a lot.
They checked us in quickly and moved us right back to the Pediatric section of the department. Logan got to sit up on a bed shaped like a fire truck. He liked that part too. He was restless, understandably. The doctor arrived quickly to evaluate Logan's leg. Logan calmed when he realized he could lay back and watch Sports Center during the exam. I kid you not. The doctor agreed to x-rays but said he didn't expect to find anything wrong on them. Another nurse arrived to ask more questions. She showed Logan a chart with different faces on them and asked him to point to the one that most looked like how he felt when his leg hurt. He pointed to the crying face - 10 on a scale of 1-10 in regards to pain. I asked him if it really hurt so much he wanted to cry. I told him it was ok if it did, but that the nurse wanted to know how bad he hurt. Logan looked at the faces again and pointed to the smiling face. "I'm a happy boy!" he said. I told the nurse Logan was more like a 4 or 5 on the scale. She grinned. She then gave him little hospital slipper socks. He loves them too. We got to keep them. He thinks it's the neatest thing. In fact, as he rode, once again perched in the wheel chair, from the exam room to the x-ray lab in his nifty new skidded teal socks and his hospital gown, he showed everyone we passed those socks.
He was terrified of the x-ray. I stood behind him rubbing his head and hugging him. We told him it was ok to be scared. The tech told him it was ok to be scared but she promised not to hurt him. I told him it was ok to cry, but he said no, he just wanted to hug. He made it through three pictures and then one more to replace the fuzzy knee image from where he had moved a bit too much. He was so happy to be off that table and back in his nifty wheel chair for another ride. He got to stand in the doorway of his exam room with Dad and see the pictures of his bones as the doctor viewed them on the LCD monitor in the hall. He thought that was pretty neat too. He sat back on his fire truck bed and started in on the "can we go yet?" mantra. I told him we were almost done and if he was just patient a little bit longer we could stop at Toys R Us for Matt Medic. I figured he'd earned it with all that he'd endured thus far.
The doctor came in and told us the x-rays were clean. No breaks. No bone damage. Nothing structural in that regard. "It's just a sprain and some bruising." We're to give him Motrin or Advil (there goes mom out to the supermarket to find the chewable variety!) and encourage him to rest it as much as we can but to follow his lead because kids, hey, they bounce back quickly. He'll know, the doctor said, when it's hurting and he can't use it.
When the third nurse of the morning came into to discharge us, Logan asked her to take off his "annoying" hosptial bracelets. She told him she didn't have scissors, then whispered to us that they got mad if the nurses took the bracelets off people. Logan showed her his arm and said "See, it says L-O-G-A-N, Logan. That's me, but I don't like these bracelets they annoy me. Please take them off."
She looked at his chart and said "Is this chart right? He's 38 months?" I confirmed it. She stared at him and then said he was impressive. He fiddled with his wrist bands ignoring her. She offered him an ice pop. He said "No thank you. I'm ok." She commented on how poliet.
Logan got his new Rescue Hero. It came with a video. He sat in the recliner - feet up - and watched it. He sat through lunch. He played with Meg and me without running. He played computer games. He conned us into taking him outside onto his swing. He snuck in some baseball but with the caveat that he'd hit and we'd run for him. He walks tonight with only a slight drag on the left. Something I'm not sure we'd notice if we hadn't spent the morning getting it checked out. Logan says he had an "interesting adventure" today but he doesn't want any more x-rays.
Let's hope he keeps to that!
Snaphots of a 1st
A few snapshots of a big day for one little boy:
Preschool Crush
On our way home last night Logan and I were talking about his day at school. Mrs R had helped him up on the potty again.
"You like her, huh?" I said to him and again reminded him of her name since he insists on calling her "the helper."
"Yes, I do," he said and then giggled. "She's really pretty."
"What about Mrs S. She's nice. You like your teacher?" I asked him.
"Oh yes, she's very pretty too."
Scene from a drop-off
Daddy stayed home today to bring Logan to preschool. The four of us went over together because Logan decreed it a family experience. He ran into his classroom and right to the trucks he's fallen in love with. Mrs S came over and said "Oh, Logan! I thought you'd want to show Daddy the other thing we played with a lot yesterday!" She pulled out a tool box loaded with toy tools and an apron from Home Depot.
Then she related the story: It seems yesterday Logan wanted to know where the Loews apron is and she told him they only had Home Depot. He sighed and said, "Daddy says Loews is better."
-
We were getting ready to leave and I attempted to pry Megan from the Dora books in the corner.
"Go tell Logan good-bye!" I urged her. She toddled over to where Logan was busy playing with a few trucks. She patted his head a few times and smiled at us. Mrs S and Mrs R both said, "Awe, how cute."
Then Megan giggled. She leaned over her brother who was seriously ignoring her attempts at cuteness. She grabbed hold of his head in both arms and bear hugged it. She kissed him and said "Bye-bye brabah!"
And then she ran back to the table covered in a Dora table cloth.
Mrs S commented on Megan's farewell and said to Logan, "Wow, you must be the very best big brother for your sister to want to hug you like that!"
And Logan said "Yup, I am."
Preschool
Logan’s preschool does a half-class-half-day thing on the very first day. Meaning today, 7 members of his class attended from 9-10:10 and the remaining 6 went from 10:20-11:30. Logan was in the 2nd half, which sort of stunk because he began yelling at me to hurry up or he’d be late at 7:15 this morning. Thank goodness he was easily distracted by a Clifford game on the computer and then some “exercise” (he likes to jog & walk around our neighborhood). I knew he was nervous even though he wasn’t saying it. He was up a few times in the night with nightmares. He was acting out more than normal. And he was more likely to get upset over little things. However, when we got to his classroom he found a toy he liked and jumped right in. He smiled for a photo. He humored me by looking at his name written on a star on the class bulletin board. Then he said something like “Hey, Mommy. You can go now. Bye.” So I went. Except Megan didn’t think that was a great idea, because apparently Megan thinks she’s ready for preschool to. She screamed the whole way out of the school wing until she found balloons to play with. She enjoyed her special time of play and then amused herself by visiting every member of the church staff as we waited outside the nursery school wing to pick Logan up.
They opened the doors that section off the church from the school. We walked down the hall and found the classes still behind their own closed doors. Logan was seated at a table with his classmates doing the hand motions for the clean-up song the teacher was teaching them. Megan was trying to grab the picture of Dora the Explorer from off the classroom door. And then the door opened. Logan saw Megan first. Then me. He ran over to say hi. Gave me a hug and said “I had a great time. I love school!” Megan was off and running. She loves preschool toys. Did we mention that? Logan decided to show us everything in his room. His teacher asked for a hug goodbye and he ran over to oblige. Meg, again, cried the entire way out because she wanted to stay.
Logan was one giant smile the entire walk out. A smile that got bigger and bigger the more he talked about his school day. He told us about circle time and telling the kids his name. He told us about the book Mrs S read to him. He talked about his cubby saying “it’s like a backpack on the wall.” He talked about how he used the bathroom and Mrs R had to help him up onto the seat. He said “Oh, Mom, the bathroom is so big! I was very impressed.” He can’t wait to go back and he asked if next time he got to stay longer. He does. We drop him off at 9 and he stays through to 11:30.
I can ride!
Recently, all of Logan's practice paid off. He pedaled himself around the block. Now he's a bike riding fiend!
Close but. . .
The kids went with us to the bank on Friday so we could sign the loan paper. The bank person was going over the paper work with us. The kids were struggling to amuse themselves. At some point the bank employee pointed to a page and uttered the word consequences. I can't even recall what it was about because I was busy trying to pry some flyer out of Meg's grasp. Another bank employee entered the room to pass off a few other papers. He saw Logan attempting to scale the back of his chair. The man asked, discreetly as to not alert the mountain climber, if the boy could have a lollipop. We nodded.
"Hey there! Would you like a lollipop?" the man asked Logan. And Logan did not even hesitate.
He waited outside the door for the man to get him the lollipop. He selected a bright yellow one. He sat contently and quietly eating his prize.
"Hmmm," he said suddenly. "This lollipop tastes like consequences."
