One-handed Archery

Today when I picked Eric up from school, he told me that his PE teacher asked him to participate in archery with the rest of the class. Eric declined. I am not quite sure how archery works one-handed. It is funny how defensive moms become of their kids. I was upset and immediately called her but had to settle with leaving her a voicemail. I was probably a little rude when I asked her if she would like to see the ER report or a letter from the Orthopedic surgeon. I guess because it doesn't have a cast on and he only has a sling, she thinks it is not very serious. I hope she doesn't mark him down on his PE grade because that would ruin his straight A streak. I wish they could give him an alternative elective, but PE is required. Needless to say, I am not happy about the stupidity of some people. She still expects Eric to work out each day. I am not quite sure what he will do other than walk. Even walking can be dangerous if he trips and falls on his arm. Thank goodness school is about out (and my homework will end.)

Long, Rough Day

I finally was able to get Eric an appointment with the Orthopedic PA. He agreed to see Eric after Mario called the clinic from Afghanistan to get the ball rolling. I called the ER and found that they hadn't sent the ER report to the dr so that is where the hold-up started. The dr asked me to go pick up the ER x-rays and bring him in as soon as I could get there. That presented a challenge since I have 2 six-year-olds that needed to go to kindergarten in an hour. I called a classmate's mom and asked her to watch the boys for the hour. She kindly agreed and I left to pick Eric up from school. If Eric misses more than 9 days of school a semester, he has to do summer school. We didn't realize he had already missed 8 days. I can't imagine them making a straight A student do summer school but I am not sure how strict they are with the rules. So Eric is a bit nervous. The lady in the front office agreed that it would be crazy to send him to summer school.

Anyway, Eric and I left and went to the hospital and then to the clinic for more x-rays before seeing Orthopedics. The first x-rays weren't good enough so they sent us back for more. That is when I realized they didn't put the shield over Eric during the first set of x-rays. Everyone assures me that he will be fine and not a big deal unless it happened several times. I emailed the radiologist's wife (who is a friend) to ask her to ask her husband. Then I realized that he probably won't be able to answer me since it is his clinic that made the mistake and one thing I noticed about drs is that they clam up when it come to malpractice.

Anyway, second set of x-rays were better. Eric's elbow has some small fractures as well but they are old fractures. So nothing to be concerned with. He received a better sling from the dr and is doing much better with the new one. The dr told us that he didn't want Eric going to scout camp. It was taking too much of a risk that he would break it again.

After the dr, I rushed Eric back to school hoping that they wouldn't count his 2 1/2 hours away as a half day absence. When he returned from school, he informed me that his teachers want me to write for him so he can do his classwork and homework. Ugh! I will never complain about him doing his homework in school again. This is terrible. Now I have to help the twins and Eric. Fortunately school is out in less than 3 weeks. So now I am hoping that the teachers will slack off and not give much work.

After homework and being the taxi driver for Erin, I came home and made dinner for the kids, took Sister Park a meal since she had surgery last week, had FHE, and finally sat down to relax and watch the first hour of Titanic with the big kids. I love our Clearplay DVD player. It edits movies down to PG. So now my kids can watch just about anything unless it isn't appropriate due to thematic elements.

I hope that tomorrow is a very boring day.

Mother's Day

This morning I received this email (notice all the artwork from the kids and friends on his office wall):

Then when I called my mom to wish her a Happy Mother's Day, she said she saw the picture of Mario on my blog. I had no idea what she was talking about so I looked. Mario has never posted pictures to my blog. But he had replaced the picture of him and I at the beach with this picture:

He sent me a couple necklaces, chocolate, and gum. Erin made me lasagna for dinner and I bought a Trader Joe's cheesecake for dessert. It was a good day but I look forward to next year when Mario is home to help me celebrate. His birthday and Father's Day are the same day this year so that day will be hard on the kids and I but at least it is one day instead of two days of sadness.

Talent Show

Erin played "The Dreamcatcher" for Desert Willow Elementary School's talent show. She also was chosen to emcee. She did a great job and I am very proud of her. Her good friend, Baylee Done from church, came too.

I was trying to hold the camera still but Nathan kept leaning up against me. So the video looks like I am shaking.

Eric's detour to school

Eric and his friends like to go skateboarding before school since there is a skatepark on the way. He usually forgets to call and tell me that he made it to school safely. So I was surprised when my cell phone rang. When Eric called, he calmly told me that he had an accident on his skateboard and that he couldn't feel his right arm. Talk about panic...the first thing I thought was maybe a spinal injury. Fortunately it was a half day of school so the boys had morning kindergarten and I didn't have to drag them to the hospital with me. I quickly loaded up the three younger kids and dropped them off a block from school. Then I rushed to the skatepark to get Eric and take him to the ER. The nurse took us to x-rays right away. Then they brought us to a hospital room to wait for the doctor.

There was already a young woman in there talking to a doctor on the other side of the curtain. The doctor left and a cop appeared. I could hear the woman say, "I was hoping they wouldn't call you." Then Eric and I had to endure several minutes of questioning about domestic violence. I felt so bad for the girl. She wouldn't provide the police with the man's name. I had never met (to my knowledge) a victim of domestic violence. But it was just like on the show "Cops." I've watched countless women on tv defend the actions of the abuser and now I was seeing it firsthand. I wasn't so thrilled that my 12 year-old had to be subjected to this talk. But I think he was intrigued and didn't want me to find a nurse to ask if we could be moved. I kept thinking how sad I would be if that were Erin in the hospital after being abused by her husband or boyfriend.

Anyway, back to Eric. The doctor came in and told Eric that he had fractured his right humerus (of course he is my only child that is right-handed) but there wasn't much he could do for him due to the break being close to his shoulder. He referred us to an orthopedic surgeon and told Eric to leave it in a sling and take his prescription medications.

So now Eric is excused from the piano recital that he has been dreading. I am not sure how he will write in school but fortunately I am sure his teachers will go easy on him since it is the end of the school year and they all love him. When I called his piano teacher, she said that he could still come to lessons and work with his left hand. Poor Eric!

The kids were so worried about Eric while in school. All they knew was Eric was hurt and couldn't feel his right arm. Zach vowed to not ride his skateboard anymore. At first he didn't want to go swimming after school because he wanted to be home to take care of Eric. So it is very sweet seeing everyone being kind to Eric. Even with a broken arm, Eric went to Erin's talent show tonight. I love when the kids show their support for each other. Sometimes I can tell that they really do love each other.

Another Week

Nothing much exciting to report on my blog this week. I did buy the kids all new baseball gear because Zachary wants to learn how to play. I find it incredible that I have 3 left-handed children. Finding 3 gloves for them was not an easy task. But we enjoyed a couple nights of playing baseball together as a family this past week. On Monday I told the kids we could play baseball for our FHE. We rarely go without a lesson on FHE nights because at least one kid objects and says it is not FHE unless there is a lesson. Eric was always that kid until recently and now Zach has taken his place. It is funny to listen to Eric try to convince Zach that it is OK to occasionally go without a lesson and just have a family activity.

Mario is doing pretty well in Afghanistan. He will reach the half-way point this month. So we are very excited. Some days are difficult and we don't see an end in sight. But overall, time seems to be going pretty quickly. Today was a pretty good day for both of us. Mario felt good about accomplishing a lot at work. My morning started off rough when Erin didn't want to clean her room but instead of getting too mad (I was upset about it for a while but Mario quickly diffused me), I decided to serve her and clean her room while she was gone to school. I wouldn't recommend doing that all the time, but today I felt like maybe it would show her that I do love her and I like to serve her. She appreciated it and she was quick to thank me. Mario always reminds me that we love our children the most when we are serving them. I feel like I am serving them 24-7, but I guess small things, that are out of the ordinary, like cleaning up a room for her means a little more. I miss having Mario around. He keeps me well balanced. I think we balance each other out. I love being married. I guess that is mostly due to who I am married to. (Yes I did indeed write this...Mario didn't get hold of my blog again!)

Gila Valley Temple

Last year, Eric, Erin and I flew to Salt Lake to attend the Draper Temple open house. But Nathan and Zachary weren't able to join us. So yesterday, I took all four kids to the Gila Valley Temple open house. It is exactly 120 miles from our home and took about 2 hours to drive. Mario could probably drive it a little faster.

The Temple was absolutely beautiful. There was an amazing chandelier in the Celestial Room. As you can see (these are pictures I found online), the mountains behind the Temple are an awesome sight too. I guess I appreciate mountains more than most because I am from Florida where there are none. There was still snow on the peaks yesterday.

The temple was small so the tour didn't take long. But it was great to be able to show my kids where Mario and I go when we are inside. We had to put little booties on so we didn't get the floor dirty. The kids asked if we put those on every time we go. One room that touched me was the Bride's Room. It made me realize that it won't be too many years before Erin and I are in a Bride's Room preparing for her sealing. Eric wanted to know if they had a groom's room.

I felt the spirit strongly during our tour. I hope the kids did too.