Last year Lydia celebrated her 5th birthday with her right arm in a cast. It was disappointing for multiple obvious reasons but also we had arranged to rent a bounce house for the party that she didn't really get to enjoy. So this year we decided to rent a bounce house again for their party to make it up to her. We were in the 2 week count down and then it happened. The dreaded monkey bars.

I totally respect the monkey bars. I always have. The girls started attempting the monkey bars about a year ago and I have done my fair share of hovering (and I am not typically a hoverer) and have hollered at Ryan many times to do the same because when I see a school aged kid at work with a bad break, 9 times out of 10 it is from those darn monkey bars. It totally snuck up on me though--they were doing so well so I kind of got lazy and then bam! broken arm. We were enjoying one of the last warm days of summer and rode up to the neighborhood park for a family bike ride. We saw our neighbors and stopped to say hi. The kids made a beeline for the playground and not 5 minutes later Lydia was laying flat on her back and screaming "I broke my arm again!" So I ran home in flip flops to get the van and made our way to the urgent care. She was taken care of quickly and was soon in narcotic la-la land which for Lydia meant comfort as well as extreme chattiness (even more than normal). She felt much better in a splint and chirped loudly as we were exiting the urgent care via the very full waiting room"good thing you work here mom or we would still be waiting here with all these people!"

The adventure was not yet over though because her fracture was out of place and needed to be set while under sedation by an orthopedic specialist.  So the next morning I loaded up a bag with books and electronics and set off for the emergency room. Prior to leaving the house she said, "don't forget your wallet mom, this is going to be expensive." Yes, Lyds, I imagine so. I tried to be thoughtful and I bought her a couple of much sought after frozen toys as her reward for surviving her IV without a fit and realized that little mini dolls with clip on dresses aren't the best present for a kid who has one arm in a splint and an IV in the other. Regardless the day went pretty smoothly. She happily talked with anyone who darkened our door including telling the orthopedic specialists she was disappointed that they did not have purple and "you really need to have more than one girl color here." She also coined a new Lydia phrase for the day which was "well that would really be 'WAH-wuh' and made a noise much like losing a video game. I have no idea where she came up with that but it was pretty entertaining.

Although she was annoyed at the situation she handled it pretty well. She was showered with love and attention and even a few cast gifts for her misfortune (my mom sent her a copy of the book "Alexander and the terrible, horrible no good very bad day").

So, all that to say, Lydia spent her 6th birthday and birthday party with a cast on her left arm this time. Yes, we still got the bounce house (I already had a deposit down) and she even bounced in it a little when mainly her sibs and cousins were in it so as not to maim a non relative with her rock hard cast
.

So it begs the question for next year. Bounce house or not? I might just leave that one up to Lydia.





Lydia with her ER entertainment--ipad, dolls she could only look at and of course her Sneetch









Post sedation Lydia








Proudly displaying her cast at her birthday party.