Jaide Gets a Cast

On Friday I took Jaidey Lady to get her cast on at the Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan (again, so grateful that these awesome hospitals are in our backyard).

While waiting for the doctor she was enjoying the one-on-one mommy time.  She especially loved playing peek-a-book with the curtains.

When they took her splint off she kept looking down at her arm like she was discovering it for the first time.  Then they had me sit on the bed and hold her on my lap while they put her cast on.  I asked them to put the water resistant cast on - since she loved to dump out her cups and make messes (we call it "sensory play").  I picked bright green to help avoid confusion.  She gets it off at the end of January - less than 3 weeks away.  AND they don't have to x-ray it at the end.  The cast is mainly there to add support and comfort while it heals, but the bone itself doesn't need to be held in place to heal properly.  Which is great!  We can deal with that!  

Jami reminded me that last Sunday the music leader, let's call him Bro. Palmer (cause that's his name), asked me how he could tell the twirls apart.  He sings several songs that use all the kids' names and I usually dress my girls similar on Sundays which makes it hard for him.  So really this whole cast thing was his fault.  He jinxed poor Jaide.  I'm planning on sending him the bill.

Every single night I sit Jaide on the "stander" aka step stool and wrap her arm.  Plastic bag, tape, burp cloth, rubber band, zip lock bag, tape, and finally paper tape against her skin to form a seal.  It's been very effective so far.  No leaks yet!  She just sits there patiently, handing me stuff, and watching it all.  Jake says she likes the attention.  That might be true.  She never seems too bothered by it.  Even while playing and eating.  But I can tell when her pain meds wear off 'cause she gets cranky.  So we've tried to stay on top of them and ice it occasionally.  She actually really likes when we wrap it in an ice pack - probably feels good on her sweaty arm.

Within hours of arriving home from the ER last Tuesday, Jami created a Pinterest board dedicated to cast decorations.  There are some crazy ideas out there!  I asked the cast people what I could use to bling out her cast.  They said we could use any glue but they recommended we stay away from mod podging fabric onto it (one of Jami's Pinterest ideas) cause it blocks the air flow.  So we first tried E6000 (like super glue, but better) but it took too long to dry and Jaide wasn't that patient.  So I finally broke out the hot glue gun to put her jewels on.  It worked really well!

Jaide loves to dress up and be "pretty".  So adding sparkly bling to her cast made her giggly!  Jaide has picked at the jewels a few times - and so has Siena!  So far it's staying on... we'll have to see if it lasts the next few weeks.  

I forgot to include this story on my last post:
After the home teachers left and we took the twirls up to their room to go to bed, Jami found Scarlett at the top of the stairs.  With her bike.  Yes, she carried her bike up the stairs (and fast too).  She had turned it around so it was facing the stairs and was sitting on the seat staring down the stair case with a sinister smile on her face.  Jami was so surprised by this and yelled "what are you doing?!?"  The next thing I knew Scarlett was in the twirls' room hiding behind me and kissing my back.  She knew she was in trouble so she was trying to get on my good side, I guess.  Jami told me what happened and I told her "let's just put the twirls to sleep first".  I noticed Jaide's ER anklet was still on so I asked Jami to go get me the scissors.  When she came back in the room, Scarlett (who knew she was in big big trouble) looked at me with terrified eyes and asked "what are you going to do with those scissors?!?"  haha! I thought it was so sad (and kinda funny) that she thought, even for a second, that her punishment somehow included scissors.  So I let her help me take off the anklet and we put away the scissors so there was no confusion as to why I needed them.  But seriously, how terrible would that be to land in the ER twice in one night for different kids going down the stairs?!?  She was deliriously tired and I think the emotional trauma of hearing Jaide fall and seeing her arm all bandaged up was just too much for her sweet self.  She is very good at keeping toys with wheels on the main floor, I think it was just a bad combination that night.  But still, scary!