Just call me Florence Nightengale #3

Whew! Boys are in bed and life seems to be working its way back to normal.

Yesterday was fun. B had vile stomach virus that morphed him into Joey from A Softer World. That, plus vomiting episodes every 45 minutes kept things interesting.

S had fallen playing soccer the day before- something about the way he was holding his arm when he came running up set off all kinds of bells and whistles in my head. But after a few dramatic, tearful moments he seemed OK, and even demonstrated how he'd fallen, placing all of his weight on both hands to do it.

So we iced it down and gave him ibuprofen and kept a close watch on him. I must have still been puzzling over the whole thing in the back of my head, because all of a sudden in the middle of the night all the pieces fell into place. I sat straight up in bed, might have even shouted EUREKA! and shook M awake: realized that S had probably dislocated it when he'd fallen and that it had popped back into place.

Sunday it was still pretty swollen, so we took him to the after-hours clinic. B threw up in the car on the way, of course, but, being the seasoned mother that I am, I had a roll of garbage bags, tissues, mints and disinfecting hand gel at the ready. (So Mom, if you're reading this, you'll be happy to know that those two miserable years I spent trying to score badges in emergency planning at girl scouts weren't completely in vain!)

The doctor poked and prodded S- said exactly what I'd thought he'd say, but with the one nice surprise of the day: because S seemed otherwise happy and because there was no evidence of a hematoma he said we could wait a couple of days before requesting an x-ray if we wanted to. His guess was that there were no fractures or torn ligaments and that he would continue to improve over the next few days.

Aside from being a big relief this visit was also good practice in German. I felt pretty comfortable in my skin and, except for that one moment when I asked him if he thought S's elbow had vomited, I communicated everything just fine! (Take that, DSL freak!)

S's elbow was less swollen today and, except for a couple of really spectacularly messy sneezes, this morning B was back to status quo. And now it's time for me to go flop down on the couch with a book and a cup of coffee. I think I've had enough excitement for the next few days...