Yeah, you could say that's an understatement... It does not seem fair that kids are now required to go back to school this early. I mean, c'mon-- when I was growing up, we never went back till at least the last week of August, giving us a good three solid months to drive our parents and siblings/ neighbors/ anyone within a mile's proximity crazy. Nope, not nowadays. No, now kids go back after 2 short months because they're required to start in on those 5 million standardized tests required by the educational system. Bitter? You could say that...
We started out the week with ice cream social after ice cream social. First was Alex's; we went to the mammoth (but beautiful) intermediate school he's now attending (since he's all grown up and too big for elementary school)-- the thing's three times the size of my high school. We found his class room (no small feat), met his homeroom teacher (very nice), and found the cafeteria, where we enjoyed (meaning Hubby and kids, since I'm lactose-intolerant) ice cream yummies provided by the PTO.
Monday, I knocked off work so I could take the kids and go do something fun, one last time before school started the next day. We ended up going to a water park, located in a town about an hour from us. We've been there before, but it's been about a year. We had a blast, but had to leave a little early to come home and get ready for Aidan's ice cream social.
It's amazing how different my two boys are. Where Alex is all shy and quiet and to himself, Aidan's Mr. Social Butterfly (I don't know where he got that from). Where we were done with Alex's ice cream social in about 30 minutes, we spent a good hour at Aidan's, while he went around visiting all his past teachers (and there are quite a few, considering he's been at that school for the past 4 years now- between preschool and elementary).
The next day was the first day of school and the boys seemed to be getting off to a great start... But then I got the phone call- the damned, dreaded phone call from the school nurse. And another from my husband, while he was driving Aidan to the immediate care center because you know, isn't it funny that Aidan probably broke him arm... AGAIN... for the second time in 1 1/2 years??? I'm not laughing. I hurried through the last of my work and flew out of there, in hopes of meeting Steve at the immediate care center. But by then, they were done and heading home. Aidan's arm splinted and in a sling. Appointment set for the following day with an orthopedic doctor who would evaluate the xrays and decide what to do.
Let me tell you how much torture it is on a 7 year-old to send them home without a cast. Especially a 7 year-old who FIXATES on everything... especially why they didn't put a cast on his arm... By 9:00 that night, it was pretty hairy in our house; Aidan very tired, hurting, and afraid of "breaking his arm more" because it wasn't in a freakin' cast...
So, off to the ortho doctor's office the next morning for probably the worst doctor's visit I've ever had to endure. If the doctor wasn't so nice, I'd probably have punched him in the face for manuevering and realigning my child's arm WITHOUT SEDATION. Aidan was soooo brave; but he still screamed and cried and yelled-- I don't blame him. And all I could do was hold his free hand and tell him he could squeeze it as hard as he needed and even flap it around if he needed to (because that's how he comforts himself; by flapping his hands)... Then back for more xrays because the doctor wanted to make sure the elbow didn't misalign more by all the cast/ manuevering/ torture. And the xray actually looked better, believe it or not. BUT we aren't out of the woods yet...
Apparently, breaking your elbow is the worst place you can break your arm and usually warrants immediate surgery, but since his was not misaligned enough, he didn't qualify for the immediate surgery, do not pass go before heading to jail card. No, we get to suffer through all weekend before taking him back Tuesday to see if the bone moved over the weekend; which we were assured can certainly happen even through something like involuntary muscle movement (like we can help THAT!)... I guess we're in a holding pattern till Tuesday.
If there is a surgery, then it'll happen Tuesday night and we'll spend the night in the hospital before getting to take him home and pampering him with as much pop and junk as we can fill him up with. Surgery itself is only around an hour long (the longest hour of my life, I'm sure), so it's not as bad as it could be...
So, that concludes our very exciting first week of school. You know, I frequently ask myself WHY do we always have to have something constantly going on? I really hope this is the most excitement we encounter for this school year... Any and all prayers and positive thoughts you can send our way will be greatly appreciated over the next few days, while we're in the holding pattern of whether or not Aidan has to undergo surgery.
