Palmer's First Cast

We're always excited to show off our childrens' "firsts"...first crawl, first word, first step. Well, how about their first real injury...like a broken tibia and fibula. At only 11 months old Palmer certainly beat me to my first cast. I think I was in middle school before I actually had anything casted. Luckily, P hasn't shown any annoyance at his new friend, it's not slowing him down from crawling all over the place, and he is only scheduled to wear it for three weeks.

We're not positive but we think it happened while he was sliding in Mel's lap down one of those big inflatable slides at "Pump It Up" here in Greenville. The only plausible explanation is that his foot got caught under Mel's leg as they went down the slide, b/c she says he started crying when they got to the bottom of the slide and pretty much didn't stop the rest of the time they were there. This all happened on Saturday morning (4/24). He was in a good bit of pain at times throughout the day on Saturday, but at that time we had no clue what the problem could be. We finally pinpointed to the area around his foot when we came up with our hypothesis about his foot getting caught during the slide. It wasn't bruised or ever swollen all that much so we figured he may have just sprained it. We gave him some infant Motrin which helped and decided to watch him throughout the weekend to see if it would get better.

It did, in fact, get better; although he couldn't support his weight on that leg when he tried to stand up and would topple over onto the floor. So, when that trend continued through Monday Mel set up a doc appointment for the following morning. Dr. Moll referred him to the hospital for x-rays whereupon we learned it was broken. I met them at the hospital (after having been at work for a whole 45 minutes) and a short time later I found myself holding him in the casting room having the kind of father-son bonding moment I didn't think I would be having this early on.

Good news is he should be better soon and that it was a very simple break that will heal up with no impact to his ankle joint. Let's just hope he doesn't manage to wiggle out of the cast during the next few weeks.

More Palmer Videos

April Pics (Including Easter)

Here are a few pictures from the month of April...yes, the month that is only 14 days old at the time of this post. This post is as big as many of my other posts that cover an entire month!

The daycare was closed on Good Friday so I took off work and kept the kids while Mel worked. We went to the zoo that morning and then met Mel for lunch downtown before heading home for a nap.

Bailey definitely enjoyed the animals and Palmer showed interest from time to time, as well.

Here we are at the church on Easter morning.

Bailey and Palmer on the church grounds Easter morning.

The kids hanging in front of our church. You know, its not THE most beautiful church I've ever seen but there is definitely something about it that I love. I guess that's a good thing, huh?

Palmer looks thouroughly unimpressed with the flowers Bailey is giving him. At-a-boy!!!

Bailey got a pig neck pillow, among other things, in her Easter basket. Mel picked it up for her b/c whenever we travel and Bailey falls asleep her head falls over b/c she is in an upright position. The only problem is that the neck pillow is a little too thick and it makes her look like she is wearing a neck brace. I'm not sure she'll ever actually fall asleep with it around her neck.

Since my birthday was on Easter I opened a few presents, as well. Palmer loved the tissue paper while Bailey loved helping me open the boxes.

Bailey with her Easter basket and the eggs she and Mel dyed.

We headed to the Greenville Drive game this past Friday night for the Drive's first Friday night game of the season. I know the kids are too backlit to really show up well but I wanted to post this pic anyway. We had great seats...second row off the visitor's dugout on the third base side.

Our stadium has a children's playground in the stadium that we visited a couple times throughout the game. Bailey, of course, was in her element.

Palmer had a good time in the playground too; although, we kept him away from the actual playground equipment b/c there were some crazy kids running around in there. Poor P wouldn't have survived long.

The Sunday following Easter our Sunday school class held our annual Easter egg hunt for the kids. It was supposed to be Palm Sunday but it got rained out. Unfortunately, a number of people were out of town (or watching the final round of The Masters) and didn't make it so the kids in the picture represent maybe one-half of the total number of children that belong to our class!

Bailey finding an Easter egg under a slide in the church's playground.

Here, Bailey is checking out what's inside one of the eggs she found.

Palmer at the Easter egg hunt.

Palmer Eating and Clapping

Here's a short video of Palmer feeding himself and clapping. He's been doing this now for a couple weeks or so but I'm just now getting some video of it up on the blog. I hope everyone can see the video this time.