The Thursday Finale

I should have known.  I should have seen it coming, the way Thursday would end.

It was an early morning-I had to leave by 7am with the three youngest in tow to make it to my 8:30 dr appointment.  Yes, the hospital is over an hour away.  My appointments are nice and quick now, so I figured they'd be fine.
I use the valet parking at this particular hospital because they have a dozen valets and my gigantic van doesn't clear the short parking garage entrance.  Well, it *might* fit, but if it does it would be by about an inch, and I'd rather not find out the hard way if it doesn't.
I pulled up in one of the valet spaces, get everyone unloaded and Sam into a stroller and head in to the hospital.  Just a few steps in the door one of the valets came running up to me asking "Um....do you have an extra key?"  Well, not so much.  I'm positive that the side door to the van would be open because I've just unloaded the kids.  Even if I accidentally locked the driver side door (which I knew I didn't), the side should be open.  We get back to the van to check the other door and Lincoln pipes up with "Mom-it's not going to open, I locked the doors for you!"
Did I mention that the keys are in the ignition?
And that it was running?

And here I was so excited that I was ten minutes early to my appointment despite having kids with me.

Thankfully the valet volunteered security to come jimmy open the door, with my promise that Aaron would come with a key from his office about 20 minutes away if absolutely necessary.

The kids were being angels (hallelujah!!), though after waiting for 45 minutes they started to get restless.  Thank you well stocked purse full of snacks and iphone loaded with kids books.  Except they tired of the books within 3 minutes and found games on my phone instead.   20 minutes later...still waiting.  What in the world?  Finally an unfamiliar face popped in-someone filling in for my midwife who was out of town.  5 minute appointment, which was perfect because I'm sure someone would have eaten someone else had they been sitting there much longer.  Upside?  I now have every appointment booked till the end of my pregnancy.  Wowzers!

After getting the kids home over four hours after our morning journey began, within minutes of walking into the door Sam climbed up on a kitchen chair and sent a bowl flying to the floor, shattering it.

Ok.  par for the course.

But it couldn't end there.  Noooooo.  That would have been easy.

The afternoon was mostly uneventful.  I got some ironing done, the kids played, Sam took a blissfully long nap after his early morning.  Kids came home from school and we started the daily afternoon/evening grind.  Life is humming along.

Then Sam fell off the couch.

Just rolled off the edge, small drop, no big deal.  I was in the room directly underneath him when it happened (he was with Taylor in the living room) and I didn't even hear him hit the floor.  Considering how easily you can hear someone walking in the living room when you are directly below it, it was obviously not a rough fall.

Except it was.

In my continual paranoia about his head, I verified about a dozen times that he had not landed on his head, not hit his head, not bumped his head on the table or any other possible head scenario because he was acting like he was hurt.  Something was wrong.
Sam's a pretty tough kid, so for him to fuss more than 2 seconds when he falls is rare.  He kept fussing.  He wouldn't let me put him down.  For a long time.
I finally couldn't sit wedged into the living room chair at an awkward angle any longer and got up to take him to my bed instead.  I changed his diaper and noticed that he was bothered about his left side.  He was still moving both legs, there was no bruising, no swelling...nothing that indicated injury.  I was baffled but started wondering if maybe he bumped something in his hip just right and either had knocked something out of whack to make himself uncomfortable or even dislocated something.  I figured I'd wait for Aaron to get home from his dental appointment to take a look at things, but assumed we'd be making a trip to urgent care that evening.
Sam laid on my bed without moving.  He didn't go anywhere.  He didn't roll, he didn't squirm, he just lay there holding my hand.
If you've been paying attention, this kid doesn't hold still.

Aaron called me after his appointment and we decided to meet at urgent care instead of waiting for him to get home.  Something was definitely wrong, though I still didn't know exactly what.

No crying unless I moved him, though he didn't fuss one bit on the car ride.

We got inside, no wait-thank goodness!-and Aaron finally got a chance to look at him.  By now it had been over an hour and there was some swelling in his left thigh. Aaron felt his leg, one hand on his knee, the other up by his hip, and instantly knew what was wrong.  He pulled his hands off in surprise and looked at me with a shocked expression and said "His leg is broken.  His femur is broken!  I can feel it moving around in there!"

Awesome.

Touche' Thursday.

Hang in there for the rest of the story.  It's coming.  I need to upload some pictures and right now above mentioned kiddo with broken femur is in need of me.