Museum of Flight

I am finally posting these pictures from our trip to the museum of flight last week. A very cool place. The kids were totally impressed and interested for two hours. That in itself is a very high recommendation. I think Bennett said "airplane" 75 times.

It had all of these old planes that they converted into toys for kids to play in. I couldn't believe how small some of these old planes were. I guess they say Americans have gotten bigger... I just didn't realize how much :).

Redmond Derby Days

Every July Redmond celebrates Derby Days. It all centers around the bike races which zoom through the streets of Redmond. It is really exciting. Olivia rode her bike in the morning parade. We came back in the evening for free inflatables, elephant ears and watching fireworks on the grass lawn next to City Hall. By the time we headed home the kids were dirty, sticky and dead tired. I wish summer would never end.

toddler + sprained ankle = impossible

Remember how Bennett hurt his leg? Well, he still isn't walking. Finally, after two weeks I took him to his pediatrician again. She took x-rays and said she thought she detected something but wasn't sure. She sent me to Children's Hospital to see a specialist. I finally got some straight answers and am now an huge fan of specialists and Children's Hospital. The doctor told me that often a toddler fracture won't show up on an x-ray. Sometimes they can only detect a fracture a week or two later when new bone growth shows up. I gave him my sprain diagnosis and he informed me that it is impossible for a toddler to sprain anything! Their bones are "like a cheese ball". When dropped it merely deforms. Poor Benny and his cheeseball leg. I don't feel too bad about our misinformed ER doctor otherwise Bennett would've been in a cast up to his hip for the last 2 and 1/2 weeks! And not too many worries about the bone not healing because it has been very protected by constant carrying everywhere!



Bennett now sports a cool looking walking boot... which is heavier that his entire body so I don't know how much walking is going to happen in it. However, he is finally crawling around and that has brought much excitement to him and much relief to our backs.

Oh, and the doctor also told me that at least once a week he treats other toddlers/small children for the same exact accident. He calls them slide fractures. (A child is on their parents lap and their foot gets stuck in between the slide and the parent and then yanked behind them.) I was shocked. I thought for sure I was the only parent in the world clueless enough to let that happen. Well, apparently there are a lot of clueless parents. And somehow that makes me feel better. Who knew going down the slide WITH your child could be so dangerous!

A visit from the tooth fairy

Olivia came to me the other night right after dinner and said, "Mom, I have something stuck in my tooth." I looked at her mouth and there was a tooth half in and half out. I asked her if she had bumped into something with her mouth and she said no. She is not quite 5 yet and I didn't think kids lost their teeth this young. I quickly googled it but found that some kids do loose their teeth at 4. An hour later her tooth came out. Olivia was really concerned about it. She didn't want to show anyone. But after I told her about the tooth fairy she was all smiles.

My Boys

Fun Family Home Evening

FHE with friends is always more fun!

Strawberry shortcake... hold the strawberries and cake please.

Mom wasn't fast enough with the fork.

First trip to the ER

Until last week I hadn't made a trip to the emergency room for my kids. Olivia was in a morning science camp and I was excited to do some fun things with Bennett. I took him to the park and he was so excited that it was just the two of us that he wanted me to go with him down the slide, which he never does. Somehow his little foot got sucked under my leg on the way down and it twisted his entire leg. He immediately started screaming and didn't stop for 10 minutes. I knew that something was wrong because Bennett is a brush-it-off kid who doesn't want to waste precious park time crying over a scraped knee. When he finally stopped crying I thought "well, maybe it's fine" and tried to stand him up. Immediately he started screaming again. That is when I felt sick to my stomach. I called his pediatrician and of course she told me to take him in. When we left the park Bennett wasn't crying about his leg any more... he was heartbroken that we were leaving the park so soon (it happened within the first 10 minutes of being there!). He cried "park" over and over for an hour.

When I got to the E.R. I was so relieved to see that the place was empty, not a single person was waiting. They got me right in. But then of course they didn't want to let anyone get off that easy so they let me sit in the room all by myself waiting for the doctor for an hour and a half. Then I talked with him for about 10 minutes the nurse took us to the x-ray room. We were back within 10 minutes. He didn't return for another hour and a half. Seriously! The place was so quiet and dead. Does the E.R. have a policy that you have to wait for at least 4 hours? When the doctor finally came back he told me that he couldn't find anything on the x-ray. That was a relief. However, I still didn't know what was wrong with his leg. And of course I imagined the worst - Bennett being crippled for the rest of his life. I was sick with worry until two days later a beautiful black and blue bruise appeared just under his ankle. It was a sprained ankle. Really sad, but compared to the horrible things I imagined the bruise was a welcome sight.



It has been almost a week now and the poor kid still can't stand/walk or put any pressure on it. He is going crazy and taking the rest of us with him. We have gone on walks in the stroller but he says, "done" after 2 minutes. He wants to get down and run so bad. Then we found the perfect place and have gone back every day since. It has saved us. There is a little river trail just down the street from us. So I prop him up on a rock and give him plenty of pebbles to throw in the water. He sits there for about an hour throwing rocks. Unfortunately, on Saturday Olivia was feeding the ducks and geese bread and they got really close to Bennett and started pecking at his feet so now he won't sit there any more. Too bad.