Jumping right in

So ready or not, school began.

Madeline has been so excited for middle school--only a few butterflies, almost all excitement. Despite the fact that most of her friends had their moms drive them to school the first day, Madeline wanted to ride the bus. She didn't mind if I walked to the bus stop with her, gave her a kiss, and took 42 photos of her getting on the bus. However, she did not know that I drove by the school a couple times during the day, in hopes that I might see her through the windows. No, actually I didn't. Or maybe I did.

Amelia was almost as thrilled to have the elementary school all to herself, with no big sister to boss her around and bring home the school notes.

But I had a very melancholy day at home missing my girls. I've decided it's the lakes and neighborhood pool that make me resist summer's end so much. I remember looking forward to school starting when we lived in Portland. But it is just so decadent to spend an afternoon hanging out beside the lake.

And so on the second day of school, I decided we should go to the lake when the kids got home from school since it was 80 degrees outside. The girls changed into their swimsuits, threw on their flip-flops, grabbed a beach towel and we headed to Idylwood Park for a little while.


Lifeguards are only on duty until Labor Day, and for some reason Amelia felt much more free jumping off the dock without the lifeguards watching. (I was watching very closely!)

Madeline did what she usually does--tries to catch minnows, follows the ducks, and recruits kids to build sand castles with her.

When I gave the girls the 15 minute warning, they decided to play on the playground. As soon as I set my purse and the beach towels down on the park bench, I heard Amelia cry out. She ran up to me and said, "Mom I fell off the zipline and broke my arm! We have to go!" (And then there were a few tears. Or a lot of tears. We can't remember now.)

I inspected it quickly (and so calmly! No hand flapping or crying or anything. You'd think I was a nurse or something), and it did not look good (elbow looked funky). Mia is not known to have a high pain tolerance, but her reaction to this was very clear: "My arm is broken. It hurts worse than anything has ever hurt. And it does not work." I handed my phone to Maddie and told her to call Kolby to find out where the nearest ER was. He was in a meeting, and we scared him pretty bad with 3 or 4 phone calls in a row followed by an urgent text, so he snuck out of his meeting to answer and helped us find the nearest ER. (Evergreen ER in Redmond is fantastic, ya'll!)

At first after the xrays they said her wrist had a simple break in both bones, but the xrays on the now swollen elbow were unclear so they sent them to an orthopedist to look at. Then they came back in and said the elbow was still unclear, but the orthopedist was concerned because the fracture in the wrist went into the growth plate. So we're heading to the ortho clinic at Children's tomorrow to get it checked out. They casted her up, gave us some Tylenol with codeine, and sent us home for the night.

In the meantime, Mia's home with me! No school for two days until Children's clears her to return to school. Too bad we can't go play at the lake.

(I fell asleep three times in the writing of this post.)