And a Happy New Year to you, too!

We had some beautiful snow this past Wednesday, so (as previously promised) I took my boys sledding at "the bowl," a favorite sledding spot here. The snow was soft and fluffy, just perfect. It was a little hard to get started on the sleds, but once we got our momentum going, we could fly down the hill. It was awesome. Atticus went with his friend across the bowl to a steeper place and took a few jumps. I saw him a couple of times and was impressed with how much air he got. After an hour and a half, we were all tired from tramping up the steep hills in the soft snow, so we left, much to the disappointment of the boys. Atticus was especially vocal about not wanting to leave yet and made me promise to bring them again on Friday, New Year's Day.

New Year's Day was beautiful, but the snow at the bowl was packed and hard, and there were lots of people there. Atticus and Sweet Boy took off to the steeper hill again while I took Mr. Wiggle Brows down a kinder incline. We had been there no more than 15 minutes when I happened to look over to where Atticus was sledding. I watched him fly down the hill, hit the same jump that he did on Wednesday, and that was it. He didn't start walking back up the hill: he started walking towards me. As far away as he was, I could tell something was not right.

I began ushering Mr. Wiggle Brows over towards Atticus. Sweet Boy came running over ahead of Atticus to tell me that Atticus had hurt his wrist. When I saw Atticus, and the panic and pain on his face, I knew it was bad. Then I saw the wrist.

"Oh, honey, you broke it."

{sniff} "Is it bad?"

"I'm afraid so, son."

"How bad is it?"

"Pretty bad. We need to get you to the ER as soon as possible. Let's go."

I've never seen him in pain like that before. Never.

We got to the car, took Sweet Boy and Mr. Wiggle Brows home to Phil, and headed off to the InstaCare. We never made it to the exam room. The doctor was in the hallway when they called us back. He took one look at it and said, "He has to be knocked out to set this, and I can't do it here. Head directly to the ER."

Atticus was in quite a state. Not only was he slightly "shocky," he was panicked about the amount of pain he was in and exactly what they were going to do to him. I tried to reassure him as best I could, but it's hard to calm down when you hurt that bad.

Want to see how bad the break was? Of course you do. Because you love gruesome photos as much as I do.



What I learned from all of this: I can remain amazingly calm when disaster strikes; I can impress nurses with my fascination for gross stuff enough that they ask me why I'm not working in a hospital; and I know enough medical stuff to scare my children.



What Atticus learned from all of this: Listen to that little nudge that says, "DO NOT GO OFF THAT JUMP. No, REALLY, DON'T DO IT."