Life with kids

As I am sure you may already know, Rachel has broken her leg. I am sure as time passes this will become less of an issue and more of a plain old inconvenience. For now though, it's an issue. I am sure as time passes Rachel will become more and more adept at using her crutches to get around and I will feel more comfortable letting her but just like it's hard to let a child do things on their own so that they can learn to be independent, sometimes it's just quicker to do it yourself. I fight this urge because she has to learn how to do things herself as she is. I have no idea exactly how long this may take to heal but the latter end of it seems so very far away! When I bounce back to reality it doesn't seem very far at all so I'll hold on to that thought. The dr. said 3-4 weeks, we're planning on 6+. We'll see.

I have to call tomorrow (Tuesday) to make an appointment with the orthopedist on Wednesday. I am hoping a hinged brace can be found (if a small enough one is made for her), otherwise a cast may be necessary. Right now it's covered in gauze, then 2 cast like popsicle stick splints were applied (one on the front of her leg, one on the back molded to the contour of her bent leg once the splints were moistened and dry), then it was wrapped in an ace bandage.

Because it happened over the weekend, a 'real' cast could not be applied. She may not need a real cast either, it all depends on how well she is able to keep her weight off of it. Granted, it's only been 2 days (at the time of writing this) so it still hurts to much to put any weight on it but the more weight she can keep off, the less of a chance for a cast. And not that one would be all that bad, it would definitely have it's pros but it would definitely have it's cons too. The break is on the tibia, just below the 'heart' (as I think of it0 portion of the top of the bone, where the joint it? She probably shouldn't have use of her knee and the hinged brace would probably be stationary anyway but it just would, I feel, make life easier. Maybe I am wrong though.


She was given Tylenol with Codine for a painkiller but yesterday (Sunday) she woke up at 9 AM looking like death and feeling just as bad after taking a whole pill at 4 AM. She had a tangerine and a banana to eat and that didn't stay down at all. We've concluded that she can have half a pill at night with dinner on a full stomach just before bed which should keep her all night and we'll go with Mortin during the day. The Motrin does not last as long (4 hours) and she has to have it on schedule otherwise the pain is too much but this schedule should work and I hope that within a few days she won't need pain killers at all.

 

In the meantime, I doubt I'll be able to keep enough books around. She read Heidi in one day, off and on.
I am also scrambling to figure out what to do about clothing and dresses seem to be a good compromise. She has so few knit dresses that are easy to put on that I am ordering fabrics and hope to get some made this week and to get a few more knee high socks to keep her 'good leg' warm. Fortunately, the weather has been pretty nice and if it keeps up, a knee high sock may be all that's in order. If not, I'll have to buy some stretch pants and cut off the bandaged leg up to her thigh as pretty much no pants will go over. I could also make some PJ style pants and that may work.

On a more farm-y productive note, Jeremiah and I got into the shop yesterday (Sunday) and you wouldn't believe the transformation in there! We hauled off a huge load of stuff to the Goodwill. I know we sold off and/or donated a lot before we left Ca. and I still can't believe the amount of stuff we hauled out here and then I couldn't believe the amount of stuff we're really NOT going to use and hauled it to donate. Ugh, why all the stuff??? I have yet to to bring in all my deco items though I really should. I should stop saying things like, "One day we're going to remodel." Well yeah, one day we will remodel but in the mean time, I should just go ahead and paint everything anyway instead of waiting for the day we bust out walls, etc. I may never see my deco stuff at that rate!

We are working on taxes too- income, farm and business.Fun stuff! So, in between catering to Rachel, cleaning the shop and life in general, it's busy, as usual.