four weeks ago. also known as, "the night i visited the e.r. twice, within two hours, with two different boys"

It was a lovely late summer or early fall evening, depending on how you calendar those things.

Aaron was gone Home Teaching.

Just after 7, a friend shows up with her kids and soon our kids are playing around outside. Running, skipping, jumping, using outside voices really well.

At one moment, I call over to Blake who is just standing there. He takes about half a step and falls to the ground. He hops up and start hollering about his right arm and how much it hurts and how it's broken. I run over and assess the situation. I ask him to wiggle his fingers and bend his wrist, he can do that no problem. I usher the crying boy inside and sit him on the couch with an ice pack and promise him he'll feel better in a little bit. He simmers down some and I head back outside with my friend and other children.

Five minutes later, Cade is pushing Oneil in the dump truck down the sidewalk. He trips and is sprawled out on the sidewalk, but unscathed. We both watch as Oneil continues onward, off the curb and lands head first on the asphalt. He is not so unscathed. I run over and scoop him up and see a huge goose egg already forming with a nice cut in the middle of that, that is bleeding down his face, making him look like Rocky.

My friend and I quickly decide that a trip to the E.R. is a must, so we throw all eight kids in her van, with Oneil riding on my lap. The entire time, Blake is complaining of his arm still hurting. And I, as mother of the year, tell him to deal with it because we have to take his baby brother to the hospital because of the gash on his forehead. Awesome, I know.

Before we left the house, I called another friend to meet us at the hospital to grab my kids while I went in with Oneil. The first friend had somewhere to be, so while I ran inside they exchanged the kids. The entire time, Blake is complaining of his arm still hurting. See a pattern? Yeah, I didn't either.

Aaron came home to an empty house with a scribbled note that said, "Call the cell."

He does, I explain what happened to Oneil, didn't even mention the Blake part, and then he joins me in the E.R. Two hours later with Oneil only needing to be medically super glued shut, we leave to get our other kids.

As we're putting the kids in the van, my friend says that Blake had, you guessed it, been complaining of his arm hurting, but eating some ice cream and watching cartoons seemed to help distract him. We get home and he is really, really complaining about his arm hurting. Upon a thorough examination, up by his elbow is a little swollen and pretty warm to the touch. Aaron looks up at me and says, "You're going to have to take him in."

To the E.R. The place I had just been with another boy with a different injury. Super awesome.

I sheepishly walk back into the E.R. and they welcome us like old friends. They do an x-ray, and you guessed it, Blake's arm was broken. In two places by his elbow. Don't ask me how, he seriously was just standing there and fell to the ground. I did take him to McDonald's the next day and begged for forgiveness for not listening to him. We're cool now.

Splint pre-cast.

Gettin' the cast on.

Yay!

Tiny Tim.

Seeing his arm after only being cast for 2 1/2 weeks.

And he's back.

Looks a little like John McCain with his fist, but that'll pass soon enough.

And the cutest E.R. patient award goes to this kid.