The Milk Worked

Lauren went to the doctor today and came home without a cast. He said that her x-rays looked great! The human body is an amazing thing. I don't know how anyone could doubt the existence of a God when you contemplate how miraculous a creation the body is and how it can heal itself.

Lauren was quite the pro at getting around with her casts. The last couple of weeks she has been walking around without her walker. Her ankle is pretty stiff so she hasn't wanted to try and walk without her cast. She tried for a little while with her walker. The doctor said that it will take a little while for the soreness to go away. We are supposed to go back in 2 weeks for a follow up and he said hopefully by then she will be feeling pretty good.

While Lauren was in her casts we kept telling her to drink lots of milk because it would help her bones grow back together. She's not a big fan of milk so that was hard for her. As we were walking out of the hospital today she started chanting "I got my cast off. The milk worked. I got my cast off. The milk worked." It was hilarious.

Lauren Update

Good news! Lauren saw the orthopedic surgeon on the 18th and after looking at her x-rays he decided she was ready for a shorter cast. Having her cast taken off was a little traumatic. The saw they use is a little scarry sounding, but as usual Lauren was a trooper. Not a single tear was shed. The doctor even took out her stitches once the cast was off and she didn't even flinch. The magic cast color this time is pink. She even got a pediatric walker and a boot for her cast so that when she feels like she is ready to put some weight on her leg she can. It has been a nice change. Now she can bend her leg at the knee so it is easier to carry her, she can sit on regular chairs, and best of all she doesn't need someone to hold her leg out straight while she sits on the potty.

Lauren thought that her boot was pretty cool since her daddy has one that is very similar to it. Yes, you read correctly. A couple of weeks ago Todd noticed that his foot was aching, but didn't think much of it. A few days later he could hardly walk. To make a long story short, Todd has a stress fracture in his foot. Thus the matching boots. Needless to say, we have had an interesting month.

Soccer Superstars II

Here are the pictures of Whitney playing soccer that I promised. Also, as promised, they aren't as good as the pictures Todd took of Katelyn. In my own defense Whitney's field is twice as big as Katelyn's and I was trying to run around and take pictures while still entertaining Dustin and Lauren. Whitney and Katelyn both had great games this weekend. Whitney's team won 5-0 and Katelyn's team won 9-1.

Soccer Superstars

Well soccer is in full swing and pretty much takes up our Saturday mornings. This weekend Whitney and Katelyn are having a tournament and each of them will play 3 shortened games. We have games all day long (9:35, 10:05, 11:05, 12:35, 1:35 and 2:35). I think that we will have some seriously tired kids after that and probably not just the ones that are playing soccer, but the ones watching as well. Todd took these great action shots of Katelyn at one of her games. Since Todd is Whitney's coach he can't take pictures of her as easily so I have been assigned that job. My pictures won't be as good as Todd's, but I'll take some this weekend and post them later.

Bailey Pride! 1st Day of School

Whitney and Katelyn had their first day of school on Sept 4th, the day after labor day. After much shopping, fussing, changing and primping they finally decided what they would wear to school. On the second day of school there were enough technical difficulties with their wardrobes that they missed the bus.

Whitney's in 5th grade and is now in the 5th and 6th grade hallway where she gets a big locker! Her teacher is Mrs. Gwaizdon and her favorite things about the 5th grade are her locker, band and friends. This year Whitney has joined the band and will be playing the Tenor Sax! She can't get it to make any sound yet but band should start soon and I'm sure we will have plenty of lovely noises in the house during practice time!

Katelyn is in 2nd Grade and has Mrs. Sorensen for a teacher. She was so excited to get back into school and even once told me she wished they could have school all summer. Her favorite things at school are math, recess, and the library. Her favorite new shirt is the red and grey one in the picture.

Lauren will be starting Little People's Palace, a pre-school that is run in conjunction with the High School early childhood education class, on Sept 18th. Even with her broken leg and cast she can't wait to go back to school. Since it is at the high school she likes to call her class "Preschool Musical" like the Disney show.

Dustin is happy and active as ever. Of course he doesn't go to school but he sure is a smarty pants. Just the other day he found a dustpan and broom and was running around the house sweeping. After a while he went into the kitchen an opened the cupboard where the garbage is and emptied out his dustpan by banging it against the side of the garbage just like his mom does.

Man Down!! or Woman Down!!

We had a rough start to this week with Lauren playing spider man and breaking a leg...literally. All was well in the Nelson household on a Sunday afternoon about 6pm. Home teaching was done, we had just finished dinner and were about to go on a walk when we heard a terrible scream from the basement. When Kelly flew down the stairs Lauren was under a computer armoire that we figure she must have been climbing on. We scooped her up and cruised to the hospital a mile down the road.

Once we got there they looked at it gave her some pain killer and stopped the bleeding (it was a compound fracture). They took some x-rays and found that she had broken both her Tibia and Fibula about 2 inches above the ankle. They called in an orthopedic surgeon who looked at it and recommended that we transfer to the children's hospital downtown. However St. Paul Children's was full so they sent us to Minneapolis Children's hospital. The good part about that was that the doctor on call was an excellent doctor.

Lauren did a fantastic job of being very brave in the hospital. She cried some but deserved to cry about 10 times more based on the brake. She even fell asleep in the ambulance ride to the hospital. Finally at mid-night she went into surgery where they were able to clean the wound and reset the leg without using any pins. Just before the surgery the doctor asked Lauren what color of cast she wanted and before he could give the two options, pink or blue, she blurted out purple! He quickly ran back to his office to bring back some purple cast material and wrapped her up in purple.

Needless to say the next couple of days were rough as Kelly and I swapped off staying with Lauren in the hospital until Tuesday evening when she came home. To make matters worse Kelly spent most of the day on Tuesday with Dustin at the doctor and then the same hospital as Lauren trying to get a urine sample to see if he had a bladder infection (he didn't give at the hospital or doctors office even with catheter tubes but managed to really wet his diaper on the car ride between the two).

Overall I do have to say we did have some "tender mercies" from the whole experience. First it happen while we were all home and able to quickly react, including a friend that came over to watch the kids until I got home at 4am. Second, Grandma and Grandpa Anderson flew into town on Monday so they have been a huge help in watching the kids while we have been trying to get things resolved. Three, Lauren has been a super trooper! She did a great job during the night when it happened and did very well on recovering at the hospital. She even watched the doctor open up the window in her cast to take out the drain tube and stitch and didn't even flinch when there was quite a lot of blood on the dressing. She enjoyed telling her mom about it!

Lauren is now home and enjoying a wagon limo which in her mind is much better than a wheelchair. We also found a care package from some of my great co-workers at home. The Cheetos are long gone but the fun art projects will keep her busy for a long time! And true to Lauren's love for getting out of the house she wants to go on every errand that we run, cast and all.

Dustin's 1st B-day

Dustin had his first Birthday on May 30 and we had a great time! As you can see Dustin had a lot of help from his sister on his birthday. They helped him with everything including opening his presents, playing with his presents and even eating his cake!

Some of his best presents were his new golf clubs, a fire truck, a Thomas the train. Of course it was the least expensive present, a big purple ball that stole the show for a while. That boy just loves to play with balls. Sometimes we put him on the trampoline with the surround net zipped up and a bunch of balls and he keeps him self occupied for a long time.

Once we got to the cake he did an okay job of wearing it rather than eat it, bummer. If I to rate his sister on a scale from 1 to 10 with a 10 being a wonderfully messy show they all get a 3. Whitney might deserve 2 since she wanted her hands cleaned right after she finally dug in. Dustin started out pretty timid and made a couple of attempts to get messy. It wasn't until he was almost all done and got tired that we finally got was we were looking for. He smeared cake all over his face and hair as his sisters chanted and giggled with delight. Overall I would rate him about a 5 for the graceful dismount. I guess we'll have to do cake wrestling or something next year to really satisfy our need for sugar and flour carnage.