Monkeys jumping on the bed?

Well, it wasn't a bed, and it wasn't her head.

But, there was a bit of excitement at our house yesterday.

I was supposed to get my haircut yesterday afternoon. I made the appointment a while back, thinking that Bman would be home from school and could tend the girls. Since that time, he has become very involved as the stage manager of the school play. This requires him to stay late after school almost everyday. So, I was in a bit of a fix. You see, Lucie will not be tended by anyone outside the family...she just won't. (Ask my friend Robyn). Anyway, I decided that maybe Slady and her friend could tend her for the mere thirty minutes that I would be gone. She loves playing with them! They of course were thrilled and made plans to take her to the neighbor's backyard to play (which sounded good to me, because the neighbor's mom would be inside if anything went wrong). So that was the plan. Well, the hair salon called right after the girls left for school to tell me that my stylist was home sick and we would have to reschedule. OK. Now I didn't have to worry about Lucie anymore.

When the girls arrived home from school, they were very sad that they wouldn't be able to have their babysitting debut. So, they asked if they could take her next door to play anyway. Well...sure! I had some things I needed to get done and this would be a good way to see how Lucie would do in a situation like this. So off they went.

Slady called moments later to ask if they could put Lucie on the tramp. I gave her all of the rules. Just tiny little bounces...no one else on the tramp, etc, etc, etc. Within seconds, literally, I heard Lucie crying her intense cry. (This is not uncommon. She often gets overwhelmed with new people and especially new surroundings when Mom isn't there) Bman went next door to get her. So much for playing at the neighbors. I asked Slady what had happened. She couldn't think of anything...she just started crying for no reason!

Well, I tried to calm her. This usually only takes a few minutes, but not today. She would settle down for a minute or two and then let out a cry that would stop your heart. It baffled me. For hours. I went through all kinds of scenarios. Maybe she's got a stomach ache, or gas pains? Maybe she needs to go to the bathroom? Maybe she has a sore throat? Are you hurt? I kept asking over and over again. I really couldn't figure it out. And apparently her symptoms escaped her vocabulary. She wasn't talking.

Finally, at dinner time Bman noticed that she was not using her left arm at all. Upon further investigation, she screamed any time we moved her arm. Then I realized that she tended to scream whenever we moved her from one spot to another or changed her position. Bingo! I think we found the problem. She wouldn't let me too close to investigate. So, we rushed off to the after hours clinic. I really thought that she would be coming home in a cast. But thankfully no. It was merely "nursemaid elbow". A twist here and a bend there (and one really loud scream followed by a flood of tears) and she was good as new. She started using her arm within minutes and she was monkeying around before we got back in the car. As far as we can tell, she she just landed wrong on the tramp. Those darn tramps! Hopefully the girls won't be too scared to try their hands at babysitting again in the future. It really was not their fault. Just one of those freak things.