No, Darling, you cannot fly

Sunday afternoon while I was in the midst of traveling back to Maryland to pick up my children from Grandma’s, I learned that my daughter and son had decided to play superheroes. On the stairs. Holding hands. Yes, my dear son thought it would be a great idea if the two of them held hands while leaping into the air down a set of two carpeted stairs. Seeing as he is about six inches taller than she is, needless to say he survived the flight and she didn’t.

My mother was horrified at the bruise and swelling that erupted over my daughter’s right foot and iced it immediately. When I got back from RWA, it was black and blue but she was still walking around on it. On Monday, she cried when she had to put shoes on, so I suspected that I should probably have this checked out by the pediatrician.

Before the pediatrician would see her, they wanted x-rays done, so we drove home to Virginia, got the x-rays done, and had the results sent. On Tuesday she was still bruised but would alternate between jumping around and crying that her foot hurt. The pediatrician was suspicious and although the x-rays showed nothing, she referred us to a pediatric orthopedist. By this point, I was feeling a little stupid. I mean, it was bruised, but other than that, no big deal. If it was a sprain, they couldn’t do much more than wrap it.

But, I dutifully took her to the specialist the next day. The first thing they wanted was to redo the x-rays. I thought they could just use the hospital ones, but they were pretty convinced that they would find something the hospital didn’t. Sure enough, she’d fractured her foot in three places. And here I was thinking I was overreacting by taking her to the specialist. All I can say is, thank goodness I did! She didn’t have to get a cast because they were minor fractures, but they put her in a velcro boot to keep her from arching her foot.

Isn’t it terrible how you secondguess yourself when you’re a parent? Have you ever had something like that happen, where you under or overreacted?