a little lesson in crossing the road….

I have been really struggling to blog lately. If only there was more ways of getting more time. That and having incredibly clingy pre-schoolers who seem to be unable to exist without me for a couple of hours. When I say without me, i mean sitting on my lap, hanging onto my leg kind of without me. Yeah…not much getting done. :-/

So i am making a HUGE effort this week..because really I love my blog. I was thinking the other day just how much. I have loads of other ‘hats’ that i wear but this one is close to my heart and i miss it when i dont come and hang out a little here….

To that end..im joining in with my blogger friends with Monday Club..which if you follow the link you will see that it is in fact wednesday witter dressed up for another day by the lovely Sarah Miles.

So back to that lesson…

about a week or so ago I was walking back from nursery with my youngest and she had convinced me to allow her to walk. I am NOT crazy about such little toddlers walking, they trip over, they stop, they wonder off. Yes sometimes you have to stop and smell the flowers but every frickin’ one?

So we were making slow progress towards home and tbh against my better judgement i let her stay out of the buggy to cross the road. We awaited the green man and walked across with her making unhappy noises about being forced to ‘hold hands’ ….. then she tripped and as i had hold of her hand I sort of half lifted, half stopped her falling… then i felt it…..

squeamish look away….

the tension in her arm changed in my hand and she started to scream and scream….her arm dropped to her side…

and my heart fell like a stone…..

This had happened to one of our older kids years ago and so I was pretty much 100% sure i knew what had happened. Its one of those injuries that is so common but as a parent you just want to sob into the arms of the a&e nurse and beg them not to inform social services and take your child away.

The first time this happened (it wasnt me that had done it that time) I seriously thought that we would get to our local kids hospital and they would discreetly note down our daughters name on the ‘at risk’ register. But we were cheerfully informed by the consultant…’yes happens all the time’

Incredibly this injury which is called ‘pulled elbow’ only effects kids under the age of 5, owing to the immaturity of their joints, and is renders the arm completely useless and lifeless..which is SO SCARY. But it is remedied with a quick twist back into place *faints*  and then usually the kids are back using their arms within minutes and the pain has gone.

We went to the kids a&e, me silently praying that the legendary queueing times would be shorter than the next millenium. This happened in the morning and I was already making plans for who might be able to pick the kids up from school.

But incredibly we were through and out of there in an hour, hindered only by the consultant conducting a little teaching session with a couple of, what i assumer where, medical students. Their diagnosis of the problem was rather worryingly a dislocated shoulder!!

She was completely insulted, as you would expect, screamed and clung onto me like a limpet and scowled at anyone of the nurses who tried to talk to her. BUT she was using her arm within a minute or two, encouraged by me dangling a packet of chocolate buttons near her previously limp hand. Wonderful to see your kid using both their arms, ah the simple things!

She fell asleep shortly after we left and I dropped in on a dear friend for a cuppa to calm my nerves.

Quite and ordeal for the school run i think!! So the morale to the story is when they are little try and grab them above the  elbow if you need to….and don’t swing them around from their hands helicopter stylie..an under the arm pit lift and swing is better!

here she is back ‘on form!’