Where "Be Careful what You Pray For" is Clearly Illustrated

When Lucy first came to our family, we made sure that Nathan learned how to "be soft" with his new sister. We reminded him to have "soft touches" when he'd get close. This point was especially reinforced one day when I left the baby in the middle of the room on a blanket, ran upstairs and came back to find no baby. But Nathan was laying flat in the middle of the blanket--ON TOP OF HIS SISTER.

As Lucy grew, so did her will. And strength. An determination. We found that she didn't quite need the protection she needed only a few months before. In fact, we often turned out heads and let her throw a punch every now and then. But as time went on, it became clear that Lucy was fully capable of issuing a full sized smackdown of her own. It was Nathan who needed the protecting this time.

Now that Nathan is a full foot taller than Lucy, the tables are back where they were. He's a strong boy and has learned some moves while wrestling his friends. He's often reminded he's the biggest and strongest and needs to be more careful when he is playing. And when dealing with his sister, we have found that for every new move Nathan has learned, Lucy has learned the art of crying and how best to use her tears.

Last week, we had a bout a million errands to run before a park playdate. I hopped out of the car for a minute and returned to a sobbing Lucy and Nathan who was saying, "Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry! I'm so sorry!" Hmmm. What happened? Lucy pulled Nathan's arm. So he pulled it back.

We drove to the park to meet our friends. Lucy was still complaining about her arm and when we got out of the car, she started sobbing about it. My friend-who knew a bit about hurt arms-suggested it was Nursemaid's Elbow and offered to set it back but Lucy was crying so hard, we decided we'd just keep an eye on it while I fed the baby before doing anything.

I watched Lucy Joy: Professional Playground Junkie walk around the park for an hour and not play on anything. She held her arm, she'd come over and snuggle me. She even attempted to eat raisins out of a box one handed while walking. It was possibly the saddest thing I had ever seen. And, more importantly, she was not using her arm at all. I called the doctor and got an appointment for about 2 hours later.

By the time I got to the doctor’s office, Lucy still wasn’t feeling well. When we got out of the car, she was still very sad.

When we got to the waiting room, I noticed she was holding her bag of goldfish with the bad arm.

And by the time we were in the examination room, she was SWINGING HER ARMS ABOVE HER HEAD and singing.



Sigh.

I think she possibly popped it back when she was getting out of the car when she had it in this weird position and it kind of got “caught” on the back of the front seat. Because even my own daughter isn't THAT good as an actress.

I was mad at first that I was sitting there in the doc’s office with a perfectly healthy (and quite obnoxious since she hadn’t had a nap) daughter. But then I remembered that on the way to the office, I had prayed that the visit would not be traumatic, painful or upsetting to her.





It definitely wasn’t.