When Evan leaves, things fall apart.

I don't know if you are aware of this or not, but when your spouse leaves for an extended period of time, things that normally would never happen, happen. It's true. Last week, Evan was gone to Virginia (the state) for a class. He left Sunday morning and things were going smoothly until late Tuesday afternoon.  That's when Elisabeth asked if she could go play at a friend's house down our street.  I said sure.  About 20 minutes later, I hear her come in and take off her shoes.  As she's headed toward the living room, I ask her if her friend had to stop playing.  "No. I came home because I fell out of a tree."

Elisabeth and the friend were playing in the girl's tree house (it's actually more of a platform).  They were trying to decide what to play when a bird in the tree flew towards Elisabeth, she panicked, and she fell backwards out of the tree.  It was a good 9ft drop.  The friend asked if she was ok and Elisabeth told her she needed to go home.  When she fell, she fell on her right side, hurting her leg and she hopped all the way home.  Mind you, Elisabeth did not tell me all of this when she walked in the door.  She wasn't crying or freaking out; she's just weird and has a high pain tolerance.

Well, I asked her how her leg felt and she said sore.  She couldn't put any weight on the right leg and after half an hour (and calling Evan and Kyle for advice) I decided to take her to the emergency room around 6:00PM.  At 10:30PM, we finally got to go home.  Elisabeth was examined and had x-rays done.  Nothing was broken, but she definitely had some trauma to the leg after such a big fall.  They gave her some crutches and told me to give her tylenol and sent us home saying to make a follow-up appointment with her pediatrician on Friday.

Well, Ebeth, who obviously is not a complainer about pain, was coming home crying after school about how much her foot hurt.  The ER doctor said she'd probably slowly start to use her foot by the weekend, but by Thursday night, there was no improvement and I was worried that we were making her worse.  When we went to the pediatrician on Friday, the doctor asked if Elisabeth had been given crutch training.  I said no. She was not pleased.  Turns out, Elisabeth needed to be taught how to put some weight on her bad foot with the crutches in order to allow her to slowly start using it more.  She also learned how to properly go up and down the stairs (I had been telling her the opposite of what she should have been doing, but since I've never used crutches, I had no idea) and she learned some foot stretches to help her muscles.  By Sunday, she was walking around crutch free!  I am so glad we went back or the follow up appointment.

Also, while Evan was gone, the girls had a dentist appointment.  This was Julia's first trip to the dentist.  She was nervous.

But, thanks to my sister, who suggested the dentist to us, the staff and dentist were fabulous with her and she was a super patient.  They gave her cool sunglasses so the light wouldn't bother her.  They also had Toy Story 2 playing so she'd have something to distract her.  She was told her teeth were clean and perfect.

 Ebeth was also told her teeth were fabulous except for one cavity that she is having filled this week.  Elisabeth LOVES the dentist, which is why she insisted on keeping the appointment even though it was the day after she fell out of the tree.

 Besides endless doctor appointments (cause I had my own baby doctor appt too), my car's brakes decided to take a dump, causing me to have to take them to Just Brakes.  Don't worry, it wasn't just that pads needed replaced, but that my right back caliber needed to be rebuilt.  I was carless most of Thursday and part of the morning Friday.  It was awesome.

But, Evan came home late Friday night and now all is right with the world.  Elisabeth's leg is better, my car is fixed and Julia has outgrown her tricycle and is now on a training wheel bike!

 She is super proud of herself.

Now that my week from hell is over, I can focus on the important things...like Halloween and Elisabeth's 9th birthday next week and the fact that my parents are coming in a week from Thursday!