Rats! Two weeks ago, my three year and a half year old grandson Sam broke his elbow jumping from a pillow fort.
Ouch.
Poor little guy.
Sam was just another casualty of the latest wave of blizzards that have buffeted the Northeast this winter.
Boston has gotten hammered with snowstorm after snowstorm. My daughter’s house got twenty-one inches in one afternoon alone.
(Photographs courtesy of Natasha Tofias)
A winter wonderland, true. But the snow also kept Sam from going to school and burning off his non-stop energy.
Natasha- a first grade teacher herself- attacked this problem head-on by turning her basement into a pre-school.
(Sam and his sister, Carly)
But I guess continuous indoor recess led to the pillow fort and the pillow fort led to the ER.
(Okay, way more serious than a broken elbow. But I just like George Clooney.)
After the ER, Natasha followed up with an orthopedic surgeon. The doctor casted Sam’s arm for three weeks.
Boston, we have a problem.
First of all, Sam is a lefty.
He throws left-handed and he’s left-footed, too.
(Which makes his Uncle Kenny- a former soccer player and baseball coach extraordinaire- drool. He loves those lefty players.)
Eating and dressing and other basic tasks are going to be tricky.
And if that’s not difficult enough, the doc banned all swimming, sports and running around. If he trips, Sam could hit his head.
That ban is going to be a real pain in the neck.
Sam HATES to sit still.
He is forever in perpetual motion.
Running is his favorite thing.
His mother knows that keeping her little Action Man is going to be a challenge.
I pity her. It’s no fun trying to keep a little boy in bed.
It’s so much easier with a big one.
When my son Nick was fifteen, he had a terrible bout with toxic tonsils.
After a few painful ER episodes, his doctor decreed that they had to come out.
We were living on East Lake Shore Drive back in those days and it was really simple to get to Passavant Hospital. (Part of Northwestern Memorial Hospital now.)
We just walked over. The only wrinkle was that Nick insisted on going in his pajamas.
They were easy to get on and off and really comfy. He felt that it just made sense and would save (his) time and (his) effort in the long run.
Hey, it was okay with me. Anything to get him to that hospital and get those septic tonsils yanked.
Nick came through the op with flying colors and after a day they were ready to release him to my and Klara’s- our housekeeper and former nurse- tender, loving care.
Klara and I went to fetch him and that’s when we ran into a small problem. It seems that Nick’s pajamas looked EXACTLY like the hospital garb that their patients wore.
As the three of us walked through the halls, the staff was calling for Security. It looked like two women were trying to bust a non-released patient out.
Nick’s surgeon had one serious post-op instruction for us.
“See that he stays in bed for a week. I’m not kidding. One full week. Any activity could rip those stitches in the back of his throat and then we would be in big trouble. Make him stay in bed.”
Klara and I solemnly swore that we would.
We also knew that this was going to be NO problem.
Nick, at that point in his life, thought he was Hugh Hefner. Every activity he loved to do (with the exception of snowboarding) could be done in bed.
From video games to dining to his girlfriend’s visits, Nick reigned supreme sacked out in the sack.
With the wave of a languid hand, he summoned popsicles, cold drinks, the latest offerings from Sega, delicious meals and anything else his little sultan’s heart desired.
He saw absolutely NO reason to get up.
After seven days, I had to force him.
So good luck, Natasha.
You can’t keep a good Sam down.
My parents told me that I had a cast on my arm when I was two. I hadn’t broken any bones, but the cast was (at least back then) needed to help a scald heal. The main memory my mother has of that brief “joyous” period, is of me using my thick cast as a battering ram around the house!
Mercifully, for her, my cast was only on for a couple of weeks 🙂
-MAS
Thanks, MAS. This only proves what I’ve aiways believed. Kids don’t remember the stuff that turn their mothers’ hair gray. I bet Sam won’t recall his visit to the ER and Natasha will never forget it.
This does not look helpful for Sam’s writing career. Although it might be a good time to introduce him to the pleasures of “elbow” macaroni and cheese. And the importance of learning to “Walk, Don’t Run.” That might have been a Ventures tune in my youth. Beep beep.
It was a Ventures song- and a cool one. And it’s also the last movie of Cary Grant’s career. Meh. But thanks for the suggestions, Jack. They brought an early morning smile. 😊👍
My father had numerous meetings with Hef – mostly while he was in his PJ’s and some when he was in bed.
I remember that your father did business with him. That was so cool and really impressed us teenagers.
My early years were spent in Wayzata Minnesota. When summer came at ripe age of 6 it was a novelty to run around the neighborhood with no shirt on. The house we lived in had a steep blacktop driveway sloping down to a garage under the house. I had the unfortunate accident of running down the drive and fell ripping open a huge area of skin on my chest, prompting my Mom to rush me to the hospital in a panic. They patched me up(hurt like hell) and back home to rest. The reason I am telling this is to confirm how hard it is to keep a young boy down….within the next few weeks I tore this wound open 2 more times with my outdoor activities with my neighborhood buddies and I thought my Mom was at her wits end. All turned out well…just chalk it up to growing up, but was probably harder on my Mom than me.
Ouch! You poor little kid! And your poor mom. My brother had his nose broken by a line drive when he was about twelve. The surgeon fixed it and packed it and told my mother “No sports.” Then he broke it again the next day when he was high-jumping. He said that he didn’t consider the high jump a sport. Thanks, Steve. Glad you’re all better. 😊
Oh, I am so glad to see recent pictures of your darling grandchildren who live in Mass. They are still very, very cute! I hope you’ll come up with more excuses in the future to include them in your letters.
I have no doubt your daughter has had her hands full with trying to keep Sam from being too physically active. Does Sam have his cast off yet?
I loved the book, “Glass Castle” but never saw the movie. Did you see it, and if you did, was it good?
Thanks, Susan! Yes, Sam just got his cast off last Thursday and all’s well. Whew. As for “Glass Castle,” I read the book as well and found it harrowing and inspiring in equal measure. I did not see the movie- just a few clips.