Poor Hyrum

Okay, so almost daily something has happened that I thought, "I should put that up on the blog." Then last Friday, something so horrific, so terrible, so tramatic (for me) that everything else is going to be left out!!

Last week was the all school play at the kids elementary school. "Rockmania" was a play that was written for school kids that included 9 rock-n-roll songs that the kids and teachers sung and danced to. Vilate was a singer all three nights in the "Lollipop" song that Kindergarten did. Faith had two songs. She sang one night in "Locamotion" and danced the other two nights and she sang a two line solo in "Dance to the Music." It was an awesome school play. There were over 200 kids in it. The play lasted a total of an hour and 15 minutes. All kids were able to be seen and participate and there were different singers every night. If the kids weren't singing in the mics they were dancing on stage and singing. They also had the kids in charge of the sets, with parent supervision. Hyrum helped with "Surfing in the USA" - the second graders song. It was amazing.

So, we got tickets for Wednesday night and went to see the show. Thursday night I dropped the girls off and at about 7:15 pm, I had all the other kids in bed, except for Nephi. I had just sat down to nurse the baby and veg with the TV on, when the phone rang. It was Marty Monroe, another mom at Mission. She told me that Vilate had fallen off the stage and had hurt her knee. She offered to have Carmen Kirkpatrick, yet another Mission mom, bring her home, or I could go and pick her up. I figured that if she was offering the ride, it couldn't be that bad. Vilate got home and it turns out that a boy stepped on the ties of her ballet slippers as they were walking out onto the stage and she tripped. She ended up bumping her knee, the one that she scraped when she fell off her bike the previous Friday. She reopened the scrape and the blood was the reason for the freak out on her part.

Okay, so then Friday came. It was the last night of the show and as such after the show was scheduled the cast party. Because Hyrum had worked on the sets, he was invited to attend. Since Vilate had fallen off the stage the night before, I decided that I should probably be there in case of any other accidents. I left Helaman and Gloria home with Susie, the most awesome babysitter!! We got to the show and because I didn't purchase tickets, I just stood in the back for the two opening numbers, Vilate and Faith's songs. After that I went out to the back playground with Nephi and Hyrum and most of the third graders. Hyrum's friend Gavin, from second grade joined us. Nephi was playing on the ground just crawling around and all of a sudden, after being outside for less than 10 minutes, I heard Hyrum screaming my name and looked over. He came running at me with a terrified look on his face. I looked down and his right arm was disfigured. I looked as though he had a second wrist about an inch or two above his wrist. I turned to the mom with me and said, in what I think was a calm voice, that I was going to need some help.

It seemed that I stood there on the blacktop with Hyrum for an hour, but I am sure that it was only 2 minutes, maybe even less. I picked him up and screamed for Faith to get the baby, I was now in panic mode. I ran to the third grade classroom while screaming that I needed someone to help us. I put Hyrum in the nearest chair and was told by the parents that someone had gone to get Dr. Laurie Givant, another Mission mom who just happened to be there that night. Laurie came and while she was assessing Hyrum I called David at work to tell him what the plan was. He was to go home and stay with the little kids, I was taking Hyrum and Nephi to the ER and the girls would get a ride home from a friend.

After the doctor splinted Hyrum's arm we went to the ER. After x-rays and a few hours of waiting in pain, the doctor finally came in and said that they would have to "reduce" or set his arm. They offered to "knock him out" to which Hyrum responded, "What? You're gonna hit me?!?!?" or to give him a shot in his arm to numb it. Hyrum went for the shot and after they administered it and gave him some Tylenol w/Codine, they started the settting process. It turned out that they had to set it two separate times that night. We finally got home around 12:30am and had an appointment to return on Monday to Orthopedics to get the cast.

I felt so bad for Hyrum and we got donuts for breakfast Saturday morning, then he got a balloon, and I bought him pizza for dinner. On Sunday he stayed home from church. David went for Sacrament meeting and then I went to teach Relief Society. So, Monday morning we were back at the doctors. The story just gets better here!

The Orthopedic doctor looked at Hyrum's ER x-rays and said that his arm was not set right and that he would have to re-set it. Oh, NO!!!! So after the first 3 tries with x-rays in between, he determined that traction would help. So, we sat in traction for 30 mintues and then he was given a shot of Lidocane. (I'm sure that is misspelled, but it is like the stuff that they use in your mouth when you get a filling.) Then we tried 3 more time before it was finally "good enough." It was pure torture for Hyrum and it was not a picnic for me either. Now we have a green cast and a much more comfortable sling. He went to school yesterday and was very disappointed that he couldn't participate in PE at all. He claimed that he could do it all with just one hand! Poor kid!!!

We get to back to the doctor on Monday for more x-rays and hopefully no more settings!!

Well that's the highlight of the last couple of weeks. I so am hoping that we can have a few boring weeks!! I'm sure it will NEVER happen, but I can hope, right?

I am an adult now

Do you remember how long Conference used to take? I remember the dreaded words, "Kids, Conference is next Sunday." I used to hate it! But, at some point I became an adult and now I treasure those two weekends every year! I get up and shower before it starts so that I can sit and enjoy hearing those wonderful brethern and sisters teach me how to be better. So, today when Vilate came out and said, "Conference is boring" and "Conference is taking a hundred years," I realized that I have changed. I am a real adult!! My kids think of me as an old lady!! I really can empathize with Vilate, I remember those days. But now, I really love conference. I think those old guys are so super cute and they have great things to say!! I can't wait until the day that Vilate is old like me and loves conference!!

Fun and Games

I thought that it would be fun to have all the moms and their kids over to our house while our faithful hubbies attended the Priesthood Session of General Conference. My sister-in-law, Jennifer, does it at her house every time with her friends and always invites me, so instead of going to her house, I decided to copy her!! It was so much fun!! We had a total of 7 moms and 25 kids. We ate corndogs, sushi (well, I didn't), chips, watermelon, strawberries, juice, cookies, candy and even more!! The kids rode bikes, played baseball, ran around, and played on the playground!! A great time was had by all!! We are already planning on doing it again next time, so ladies, be ready October 4th - send your husbands off to Priesthood and come to my house for a lot of fun!!

Home Depot

On Friday Helaman's preschool class had a fieldtrip to Home Depot. That is one of my favorite fieldtrips. We got to the store around 9:45am and then took a quick tour. The kids thought that the forklifts were really cool. After the tour, we got to go to the back of the store and the kids got to build a napkin holder. The only bummer about it was that there were no hammers needed for this project!! I thought that there was no way that Helaman and Gloria could do this on their own and was a little disappointed, but then Helaman surprised me!! He grabbed the screwdriver and after I lined all the screws up, he told me he could do it all by himself. I thought that I would humor him and let him try. I held the napkin holder and he proceeded to screw in all four screws! He did a great job. Then it was onto Gloria's napkin holder. She wanted to do it all by herself also, but she did not quite get it, so Helaman helped her out. Together they did a fantastic job!!

Baseball - Game Count 5 down, 27 to go!!!

We survived opening day!! It was a blast. We started the day by taking pictures and attending a pancake breakfast. There were tons of people and it took us about 30 minutes to get through the line. Once we got the pancakes, the kids had a whopping 5 minutes to scarf down their food and make it onto the field to line up with their teams. Then we had opening ceremonies. The kids all ran out onto the other baseball field with their teams!! It was freezing and by the time opening ceremonies were almost over, I was really feeling sorry for the coaches who were trying to get the kids, ages 5 - 16, to stay quiet and pay attention! After it was over, we gathered all the kids and headed back to the car!

A few hours later we returned to the fields for Faith's game. I had to make a mad dash, Faith's game and Hyrum's friend's birthday party started at the same time. So I dropped Faith off early and then drove, very calmly, over to another park and dropped off Hyrum. I made it back to the baseball field hoping that I had not missed my daughter's first at bat only to find out that their game was late getting started. In fact, 30 minutes later we still had not started!! Once they finally got going, Faith had a marvelous time. She looks like a baseball player!! As you can see she is on the Yankees. She had her second game yesterday, and she was so pleased with herself! She was the first one in yesterday's game to get someone out! It was an awesome play. I think that she has found her sport.

After Faith's opening game, we ran over to get Hyrum from the party and then home to get his cup. You see, I got a call from the coach's wife asking if Hyrum would please play catcher. I said sure. Only the catcher has to wear a cup in T-Ball. I had not yet told Hyrum about it and I don't think he even knew what a cup was. That was a fun conversation!! After he was told about it, he was less than thrilled with playing catcher and has since said that he will not be playing catcher ever again!! Unfortunately, he will have to, and he wasn't happy when I told him that!!

Vilate is really enjoying playing the game. She is one of only two girls on the team. If you ever happen to attend one of their games, she will be the only kid with her had on backwards. She thinks that it looks really cool! She gets bored easily and would prefer it if she was the only one ever up to bat!! She can't wait for the next game, she gets to be catcher and she really wants to tag all the kids out!!

Helaman is really bummed that he is not old enough to play. Lucky for us the coach of the A's T-Ball team (Vilate's and Hyrum's team) is a friend of ours from church. He lets Helaman help with the practices, Helaman gets all the balls that the other kids can't quite get and then at the end of practice Helaman gets to hit a few balls off the tee. It is really fun!! Helaman loves baseball and it is really nice that he gets to be the unofficial bat boy!

By the end of opening day, the kids were beat, so was the mom!! Gloria fell asleep in the car on the way to the final game and then stayed asleep in the stroller through the entire game. It was really nice for me because David had to work and by then, I had chased Gloria enough. Nephi loved the bleachers and it did not take long for him to figure out how to climb up on the lowest one. He loves to explore and he really seems to enjoy eating rocks!!

So now we have completed 5 games out of 32!! YEA!!!!!!!!