I could've sworn I wrote a Christmas post back in December (maybe January). But lo and behold, I went to the blog today and realized that I have posted only once since we moved to Colorado in November. Shameful.
So you'll have to indulge me in posting this so long after the fact. It was a bit of an epic Christmas and I feel like it needs to be documented...for posterity's sake.
Winter may not be my thing, but even a Florida/California girl can appreciate a white Christmas. So that was one thing that set our first Christmas in Colorado apart. My parents also came out to celebrate with us which was such a treat. Having family in our home really made it feel like our home. And my parents are kind of just the best.
On Christmas Eve things got a little interesting when our double ovens both went out with a (literal) bang. The joys of homeownership.
Luckily my ingenious mom saved dinner by pulling some MacGyver moves in the kitchen. She managed to cook most of our traditional dishes using the stove top, crockpot, and toaster oven.
Christmas Day was so fun. Both of the kids were really into opening their presents and seemed genuinely pleased with what they got.
But the real story of Christmas Day was this:
The kids had finished opening all of the presents under the tree when we told them that their aunt had a special surprise in store for them downstairs. This monstrosity...
Game over.
The kids forgot about every other present that they got that day. And for a good 10 minutes, we were all in pure Christmas bliss watching with glee as the littles took turns flying across the basement floor in their little green car and coming to a comically abrupt stop when they'd crash into the love sac that we used to keep them from crashing through the basement wall instead.
But excitement got the best of the boys and we all watched in horror as Kai went sailing down the ramp on the car while Ari was scurrying up it. They intersected at just about the same spot that Ari is pictured in above. And, consequently, his body was turned just about the same angle, but in the opposite direction. So when the car hit him, his right forearm took the brunt of it.
He immediately began crying, which would be expected. But when he didn't quickly stop crying, I began to suspect that something was really wrong. Ari is my tough guy. Usually all it takes is a binky and a hug and he is back to good. Not this time.
So I carefully took off his pjs to see if he had noticeable bruising or anything to that effect. That's when I noticed that there was a slight indentation in his arm. And my mom immediately asked, "Do you think it's broken."
All the while I was obviously hoping that this was not the case, but based on his continued crying and that strange looking indentation, Yo and I decided to take him to the ER to get it checked out just in case.
With a bag of frozen peas to keep down the swelling and a makeshift sling to keep his arm immobile, Ari rode to the hospital sitting in my lap. He cried off and on on the way to the hospital, but by the time we got into the emergency room he had stopped crying, but was definitely not his usual, spirited self.
The good thing about being in the ER on Christmas day is that it is pretty empty. So Ari was seen pretty quickly and got a lot of attention from the nurses and doctors who were working that day. But it still felt like it took forever before a doctor came into examine him.... such is the nature of ERs.
When he was finally examined the doctor applied increasing amounts of pressure up and down Ari's arm. The child did not wince, flinch, or let out a single peep. So I began to doubt that he had broken his arm after all. The doctor had his doubts too, but sent him for x-rays just to be sure.
We had to wait for the doctor's official interpretation of the images, but it was pretty clear to everyone in the room that he had broken, not just one, but both of the bones in his forearm. The news went from bad to worse, when the doctor discussed the results with us and said that because the bone was displaced by about 30 degrees on one of the breaks, that he would need to consult with an orthopedist to determine if the bone would need to be set before it could be splinted or put in a cast.
It being Christmas, there was only one pediatric ortho on call and he was covering no less than 5 hospitals in the greater Denver area. So it took a long time before that doctor was able to respond to the page and to review the xrays. When he finally got back to our ER doctor, he confirmed that the bone would need to be set, which meant that we needed to wait for him to make it to our hospital to set it. Through all that waiting Ari was such a trooper. We hadn't been able to offer him any food or water since the time we had set foot into the examination room 4.5 hours earlier, just in case he would need anesthesia. So we did our best to entertain him with books and movies while keeping him calm and his arm immobile. Poor baby finally fell asleep 5 minutes before the ortho arrived and we had to whisk him off to an operating room where his bone would be set and a cast would be put on.
This, by far, was the hardest part of the day. We were assured that the anesthesia that they gave Ari would not put him into a deep sleep so that it was low risk. But that it would keep him from feeling pain and also keep him from having any memory of the bone being set. So we sat with Ari as they put in an IV and gave him the anesthesia. When his eyes started rolling back, they asked us to leave the room and wait in the hall. It was not fun leaving our little baby in that room by himself. A minute or so later we heard Ari cry out and suddenly a number of nurses ran past us and into the room, the door that had been open was quickly closed and Yo and I were left out in the hall a little horrified. His crying shortly stopped, but we wondered and continue to wonder how much he felt and if he remembers whatever it was that made him cry out.
A few minutes later we were allowed back in the room to be with Ari as he woke up.
After a much needed nap, Ari was up and back to his normal self. It was amazing to see how fast he adapted to life in a cast. Here he is eating Christmas dinner with his left hand.
As for Kai, he ate dinner wearing his super cool shark helmet (thanks, Tia!).
I think it's safe to say that we will never forget our first Christmas in Parker.
