Emma's Injury

On Monday night after Brayden's soccer practice, we went over to a friends house for FHE and pizza. I was just sitting back enjoying the evening, and the kids were on the trampoline laughing and having fun with each other. Suddenly Emma starting screaming. It was one of those cries where as a mom, you just know something is wrong. I ran out to get her and she kept saying, "My knee, my knee!" She didn't fall off or bounce into anyone, she just landed weird. After about an hour of her crying and refusing to straighten her leg, we decided to take her to the ER. Four hours later, we were told that nothing was broken, and were sent home with her in a brace. A couple days later, we took her into a children's orthopedic specialist who took more x-rays, and decide that she, in fact, had a minor fracture.

She hasn't been back to school, and won't be able to go back until she can walk on her own. She isn't walking yet, and tomorrow we are taking her back to be reevaluated and see if she needs to have a cast from her foot to above her hip. Crossing my fingers that she won't need one!

I'm so grateful to have healthy children. Bones and bumps and bruises heal, and this will all be behind us in the near future. This experience has really made me appreciate just how blessed I am that I've never had to deal with any major health crisis with my children.

Our visitor

Being on the edge of the wilderness here in Tucson, we see all sorts of wildlife right in our backyard. We usually have three or four bunnies sprawled out on our grass, lizards of varying sizes and colors perched on our fence, roadrunners darting through our yard. We hear Coyotes at night, and recently saw them and Javalina - wild, onery, skunk-pigs - in our neighborhood.

One morning Mike had just left to work when he called me from his cell phone. There was a bobcat walking up the street. He followed the animal through our neighborhood. I was really curious, and whether or not it was a good idea, I came outside to see it. I watched it walk across our neighbors front patio, and when it got to our house, it jumped the fence into our backyard. It walked a few feet from our backdoor and then over our fence into our neighbors backyard. Aw, life in the desert!