Pop goes the elbow

Alex fell down while holding Ms. Becky's hand the other afternoon. He didn't fuss much at first, but started to cry when she put on his coat. She drove him home and he came over to see me, saying, "Owie! Owie!" It was so sad to see his little arm limp at his side. He refused to use it at all, so we lifted him onto the couch and let him watch Curious George. He was fine as long as we didn't move his arm.

I remembered learning about "nursemaid's elbow" in medical school, and that there was a common fix. I got my orthopedics textbook, which described the procedure. You simply turn the hand palm-side up and flex the arm. But I wasn't sure how much it would hurt Alex, and how much force I was supposed to use. I fretted. Ms. Becky was distraught and fighting back tears, and Alex and Jonathan were absorbed in their movie.

Dr. Driscoll, our pediatrician, returned my call and stayed on the phone while I tried to get Alex's elbow back together. He fussed a little, and I thought I had felt the little pop, so we waited ten minutes. Then I held up a cup of his beloved "red," also known as juice. I held his good arm down but he refused to reach with his bad arm at all. Perhaps we needed to go the ER after all.

I'm always too hesitant with new procedures. I decided I'd give it one more try. I grasped his elbow in my right hand and with my left, turned and flexed his arm. This time, there was a definite click as the ligament snapped back into place. Dr. Driscoll had warned me Alex might cry for five minutes afterwards, but he only fussed for a moment. Two minutes later, we offered the red again. He moved his injured arm a bit, then looked down as though he was surprised. Then he grabbed the cup with both hands, drank his juice, and squirmed over to wrestle with his brother.

Years of schooling and training: nine. Student loans: $100,000. Fixing your kid's elbow: priceless.

Alexander in the recession

This kid is drowning in high-quality toys. Grandparents and doting aunts and uncles load him up. I browse the catalogs that come through the door. Attention, everyone! Please don't bother. Let's explore what's high on the Alexander hit parade these days.

1) VAN! The provenance of this Matchbox van is quite astonishing. I think our old nanny literally dug it out of the yard at the house she rented. It's missing most of its paint. It was Jonathan's favorite for a long time, but he's graciously ceded it to Alex. When Alex is getting ready to ride to preschool, he delays until he's found the van. I tried to buy him a new one (with less lead paint, I assume) for Christmas. That's been lost, but I had to pick the old van out of his blankets the other day. He'd insisted on sleeping with it.

2) Lella (or letter.) This is a purple rectangle of plastic, two by three inches, that came with the big Fisher Price house. Alex doesn't play much with the house, but he sure does love the letter. He tells us it's purple. He holds it to do the "Letter dance" from Blue's Clues. He shouts "Friends!" until we say, "Yes, Alex, it's a letter from our friends!"

3) Sofa pillows. This is the big treat of the week, when Chris builds the boys a fort from the sofa cushions. Besides a fort, Alex likes building a bed and tucking in his van, And when Blue's Clues did "What time is it now?" the clues were a blanket, book, and pillow. Alex lit up, made a bed, laid down and said "Night night!" He just figured out Blues Clues!

Cue the dance!

Mater love

Alex loves him some maters - tomatoes, that is. We're buying two packs of the cherry tomatoes each week. We keep them by the fruit bowl, and his eagle eye can spot them from his high chair. He starts to shout "Ma! Ma!" and won't eat anything else until I slice him some. We've literally never reached his limit - a heaping bowlful disappears inside of two minutes. Then he picks up the bowl and slurps down the seeds and juice.

Jonathan, who still shuns vegetables outside of soup, wants nothing to do with Alex's tomatoes. But for Christmas he got his very first movie in his stocking - "Cars," (of course!) starring Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater. We let him watch it and he was enthralled. However, my dislike of too much TV for the boys persists. Jonathan gets very obnoxious after he's watched TV, and has a genius for picking out the irritating phrases. After a day of "Stop talking!" and "Are you kidding me?" the DVD went into cold storage. He's doing much better with a new heap of books on CD, cracking himself up as he reads along.

Of course, if you're an old Latin student, you're reading "Mater" with a short a. We had some Mother love too. I spent the Christmas season with a bad back, and after a few days in bed, Jonathan decided it was time to fix me. He came in very seriously with two shoelaces draped over his ears. He informed me these were his "Pergots" and he was going to make my back better. This involved gently poking me with the ends of the shoelaces in my eyes, teeth, cheeks and ears. Mater love at its finest.