All is well…all is well. Well, all is as well as well can be!

First of all, apparently Billy felt left out of the pity party. On Sunday evening he and the neighborhood boys (including Fritz) were doing what boys do, which is usually not much good if there are no adults around. In this particular instance, they all thought throwing dirt and rocks was a good idea. Everybody was having a blast until one rock hit Billy in the side of the noggin and, like most facial and head wounds, bled like mad. He was hurting pretty badly until he saw all the blood, and then he felt justified in wailing and screaming like he was going to die.

Callous mom that I am, I decided he needed a big bandage with lots of tape to make it look good (and to get past the hairline), but unless it had been a really really huge gash, there was no way I was going to take him to the ER. Nope. No sirree. And it really wasn’t too bad. Besides, boys need a few scars. Right?

Little Pete’s appointment at the orthopedist resulted in a full arm cast to limit mobility of his arm to speed in the healing of his buckle fracture of the humorus. Three weeks, another x ray and he should be good as new. He hates the cast, and it’s no wonder. The thing has to weigh 2 pounds, and he only weighs 20. Imagine getting a weight that was 10% of your total body weight and adding it to your arm. If you think having a 15 pound pregnancy belly is bad, try a 15 pound bracelet!

And now for Fritz. The biopsy went well. Full results sometime next week, but for now the doc is optimistic that’s it’s just a cyst. He put in a stent to aid in drainage and to hopefully reduce the size of the cyst. If the cyst shrinks, the jaw bone should grow back all by itself. If this happens, then he would only need another minor procedure to remove the stent!

The doctor took out 2 of his baby teeth which were really loose and in the way. We still don’t know about one or two adult teeth which are not doing too well. We’ll have to wait and see if they can recover and be usable. St. Apollonia is the patron of tooth problems, and I’ll be talking to her quite a bit over the next few months.

The stent will have to be in place for 6 to 9 months (maybe less because kids recover faster than adults). This is a bit awkward, and I’m glad he is homeschooled. His speech will be affected, and he’ll have a lump in the front of his mouth (imagine if you stuck your tongue in front of your teeth, but off to the right a bit). He’s getting to that cruel age where kids will use any excuse to be mean. He has a good bunch of friends, and being homeschooled will shield him from the random brat, and for that I am glad.

The other downside is that he is at an increased risk of fracturing his jaw. The doctor forbade sports of any kind for now. He’s lucky he’s allowed to ride his bike.

Here’s a picture of me and my three sons with their injuries.

Now the really good news is that the doctor forbade sports of any kind. Is it wrong for me to rejoice and be glad that I’m not going to be running him around to several practices and games per week? And if Fritz can’t do it, I think it’s really awful to make him watch his siblings do things, so we will all avoid sports this fall…it’s only right.

There’ll be swingin’, swayin’ and music playin’ and dancin’ in the streets…

And now I must go to bed. I’m exhausted (all that dancing).