And the Award goes to...

The Howard/Wisniewski children for:

The most trips to the emergency room in a one week period!



It all started on Thursday. Ski has been learning Martial Arts so that he can get his green belt and decided (against several protests) to show me in the middle of our game room what he has learned. "Just stand in front of me babe! I promise I won't hurt you!!!"

He gets in his fighting stance and kicks out in front of him. In the meantime, he is unaware that the baby has crawled behind him. As he steps back out of the kick, he stepped on her elbow and locked it out.

If there were ever an appropriate time for an "I told you so..." this would have been it.

Poor Cadence started screaming and crying - I think Ski was on the verge of doing the same. As we watched her closely, we saw that at least she could use her arm. (We used the highly sophisticated medical technique of having her hang like a monkey under Matt's loft bed - if she hangs she's fine, if she falls we go to the hospital!) Well, even after a few minutes of hanging we still weren't satisfied that she was "fine" because she was babying her arm and wouldn't let anyone extend it fully. So off to Balboa emergency room we went.

All. Five. Of. Us.

Have you ever taken children to the emergency room at dinner time?

Every few minutes a child would emerge from the kids section of the waiting room to ask us:

a) When are they going to call us in?
b) I'm hungry! What are we going to have to eat?
c) When are we leaving?

Did I mention Cadence hadn't had a nap?

She was bouncing off of every wall in the hospital. Ski and I took turns chasing after her while the other patients seated in the waiting room glared at us because we couldn't MAKE our 18 month old child sit still and be quiet for 4 straight hours!

Finally, they called us in to read the x-rays. According to their findings, she had no visible signs of broken or fractured bones so they gave her the military's cure for every thing - Motrin - and sent us on our merry way.

The very next night, Matt is complaining that he can't stop itching. He had a few red areas with some raised bumps but seemed fine. I put some cream on them and sent him to bed.

30 minutes later he's down the stairs again complaining so I put some benadryl on him.

1 hour later, he is now CRYING. I lift up his shirt and he has a rash covering his back, his stomach, his legs and his arms. The benadryl didn't seem to do ANYTHING but make it worse so I loaded him into the car (at midnight) and off we go to Balboa hospital for the second night in a row!

As I walk into the waiting room I hear a man say "I've been sitting in my car for over an hour and I just want to make sure that you haven't called my name yet." She asks his name and then I hear her tell him "No, we haven't called you yet - there are still 9 people in front of you!"

Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

In the meantime, we check in and they take Matt's vitals. She asks what we are here for. I start to explain that Matt is covered head to toe with a rash and she asks him to lift his shirt.

There is not a SINGLE bump on his body. He's stopped itching, the red areas are gone and I look like a complete idiot!!! She looked at me with this look like I'm one of those people who run to the hospital for everything and politely asked if I still wanted to see a doctor. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

5 days later - Cadence still cannot straighten her arm out all the way. I had to make an appointment with our primary care physician (who ISN'T military) and she sent us to a non-military children's hospital to get more x-rays.

Sure enough they found a fracture in her humerus right above the elbow.

The radiology tech hands me a sheet of paper and directs me to their emergency room. I wanted to bang my head against the wall. This was our THIRD trip to the ER in 5 days.

Once again there we were, all five of us in the emergency waiting room at dinner time.

Did I mention Cadence missed her nap again?

Once we were finally taken to a room, we had to sit for another two hours waiting for the doctor to see us. Cadence was running on fumes and getting very cranky. While we were waiting, she decided to crawl under a chair. She was finally being quiet so Ski and I let her go. (You learn to pick your battles - crawl on the floor or scream and run out the door - crawl on the floor will win out every time!)

Well, I glanced down and saw she is rubbing her finger in something wet and dark on the floor. Before I could get to her, her finger goes to her mouth and I realize whatever she was playing in is now in her mouth. After a closer look I realize she had the antiseptic beta dine in her mouth. There were little pieces of it on the floor that we didn't know about. Neither Ski nor I knew if it would hurt her or not so I had to run out and find a nurse to tell her that the "parents of the year" in room 8 just let their daughter eat beta dine.

It was one of our shining moments.

Finally they came in and told us that she would need a splint on her arm for a week and then Orthopedics would let us know from there if she would need a hard cast. So we left with her right arm in a splint/sling.


Daddy feels really bad about hurting his babies arm!


I knew before we even went to the Orthopedics appointment that she would need a cast. Not because she was in any pain or because it was fractured badly but because Bryan and Noel are getting married in less then two weeks and Cadence is supposed to be in their wedding. If there was ever a time when we didn't need someone to get hurt - it would be NOW.

At least I had a choice about what color cast I wanted her to have (for the next two weeks). The wedding colors are pink and green so my first choice was pink.

"Sorry we are all out"

My obvious second choice was green.

"I'd prefer you didn't use green because she has such a small arm and it would waste so much of the green."

She'll be walking down the aisle with a bright purple cast on her right arm.



Has it slowed her down you ask????

What do you think?