Fearless

I've always said that Gideon is just a little bit too much like his Uncle Cody for my comfort.  Don't get me wrong, I love my baby brother.  He's one of the very best men I know.  But he's also one of the most injury and accident prone.  I think it comes from being fearless.  He never stops or slows down because he's not scared of anything.  And quite often this lands him in a cast or a brace or with stitches or something.  In a way I guess it's good to be fearless.  You're not afraid to speak out and stand up for what you believe.  But to a mother, it's also terrifying.  We've learned after 4 years that Gideon is a pretty fearless kid.  I mean, that's why he has no front teeth.  He smacked his face the same way, in the same spot on the same piece of furniture twice within two weeks while trying out some "tricks."  He gets pounded by the surf while body boarding and still we can't keep him out of the waves when we're at the beach.  I guess some kids just have to learn the hard way.  Earlier this week he stuck his finger in the cigarette lighter of grandpa's truck and got a pretty severe burn.  But guess what, he'll never do that again.

So yesterday while I was babysitting, Gideon was running around upstairs with the neighbor kid and I knew they were running and jumping and being wild.  Actually they had plastic daggers and hooks and were playing "Pirates."  Anyway I heard the crash and I heard the scream and I knew it was bad.  Before he even reached me holding his right arm and screaming that he couldn't move it, I knew it would need x-rays.  Just the way he carried it and the way it swelled made it very obvious that this wasn't just a bump.  So after icing it, and giving him some tylenol we went to the dr and got some x-rays.  Sure enough he broke both bones in his right arm just above the wrist.  The good news is though, that it ws a stable break so it wasn't displaced or anything.  The Dr. said they usually have an orthopaedic surgeon set it and cast it and by the time we got through with x-rays it was nearly 5:00 so no one could see us yesterday.  Besides it's a good idea to wait a day or two and let the swelling go down a bit before they put on a cast on it.  So after trying to keep him from moving it as much as possible last night and this morning, we finally went to see the orthopaedic who put a cast on it for us.

 Normally he said he would just put a splint on it for a few days and let the swelling go down before putting a cast on it, but since we're going into a holiday weekend and because we had a hard time keeping it still to begin with he went ahead and decided to do a cast. 

 He made another interesting observation after seeing Gideon's other bumps and bruises.  He said that 90% of injuries and accidents seem to happen to 10% of the people.  I actually believe that because of Cody. According to the Dr. it looks like Gideon is in that 10%.  It's only a nightmare for me as his mother!  Gideon seems to think it's pretty cool to have a cast.  He's already learned that it's hard and can be used as a weapon. I don't know if my furniture or my sanity will survive this, but we'll have to try I suppose.

I hope and pray he maybe learns to slow down and be a little less rambunctious.  But if I've learned anything by Cody's history it's that this is only the beginning of a life full of bumps, bruises, casts, stitches & concussions.  Because if it doesn't kill you, it means you need to get up and try it again.