Bad Mommy....

So our Christmas was....different this year I guess you could say.  We all came down with a cold around the time of my last post and mine turned into 2 ear infections and a sinus infection on Friday.  I got some antibiotics and felt better almost immediately.  Then the kids came down with it Sunday.  Sleep was difficult up until last night for Chicken.  He seemed to have the worst of it Christmas Day, too.  I felt bad for him, he was so tired and cranky all day.  Punky was too, but her new kitchen kept her occupied.  She's always been abnormally good when she's sick with a cold...no sleep interruptions (at least, they're rare if she does have them), and usually just good as gold.  Our morning went normally except we found out that Chicken was terrified of the sound of ripping paper.  Now Punky was my sensitive one and she loved ripping into packages (that's my girl!) but Chicken proved to be...well, a chicken.

So we wound up opening all of his gifts while he chased after ribbons and wrapping.  How typical!  Punky refused to open any more gifts after discovering her kitchen and doesn't really play with any of the other stuff I got her.  I'll be interesting to see once the newness wears off what she favors the most.  And with her birthday coming up at the end of January, there will be more toys.  If we weren't having #3, I'd be doing some serious cleaning house with all these toys.  I'm desperate to get rid of some of them!

And that brings me to yesterday.  When I became a bad mommy.  Of course, I guess that description means everyone woman is a bad mommy at some point because I believe what I did happens to just about everyone at some point.

Chicken has decided to start pulling up as of Monday. He's really perfected the art yesterday and today.  However, he's also start cruising a little in the process.  So while I was getting ready for church last night, he was in the bathroom with me, pulling up on the tub.  I was ready to leave, so I grabbed his arm and pulled him up, for some reason thinking I would let him "walk" out of the bathroom with me.  Well, I must have pulled a little too hard.  He screamed and cried for over an hour and wouldn't move his arm.  If we moved it he screamed.  If he accidentally moved it, he screamed.  I put him in the floor to see if he would crawl, he put a little weight on it and screamed, just sitting there looking so pitiful.  I decided to call the pediatrician to see if it warranted a trip to the hospital to get checked out or if it was just a pulled muscle.  She told me this happens a lot and his elbow probably popped out of place.  She walked me through the process to get it back in place.  As soon as I turned his hand palm up, I felt his wrist pop but his joints do that a lot and she told me I was looking for his elbow to pop.  I did what she told me to do twice (turn his arm palm up and bring it back to his shoulder).  He still cried and she suggested taking him to an urgent care just to make sure something wasn't torn or broken.

So I was gathering everything I needed to take the hospital/urgent care for his nightly routine and I noticed he was moving his arm a little bit.  I reached down and rotated it and he didn't scream.  I did it again.  He just looked at me like I was a fool.  I told him he better not be tricking me because if I spent the next 4 hours in an ER to find out nothing was wrong after all, I'd really break his arm.  He grinned.  I rotated his arm a little more forcefully and bounced it.  He did it on his own after I let go.  I decided he was well enough that I wasn't taking him anywhere.  I'd go in the morning if he was still acting funny.  I figured either that pop I felt was his arm going back into place or the Motrin we gave him was working REALLY well.  I put him down in the floor and he took off, never to whine again about his arm.  Not even a whimper.  AND he slept all night with no night disturbances from his cold.

I always knew I should have been a doctor.  Who knew I'd have to be a bad mommy and try to break my kid's arm just to figure that out?