Ouch.

This morning started like many mornings around here, with A waking too early and coming into our room. The strange thing (which we were too sleepy to really take note of) was that he was crying and that he readily went back to bed when I asked him to.

He woke up and started his day, and told M he had a boo boo, pointing to his neck. M took this to mean he had a sore throat, which made sense since A has a drippy nose and M woke up feeling sick. He had a cold. He even fell asleep on the couch around 10am.

Later in the morning, M said to me, "I think we have a problem." He figured out that it wasn't a sore throat, but that A was having pain in his neck area. He also noticed a red mark on his ear on the same side. A had fallen out of bed. We put him down for his nap. He napped for a really longer than normal amount of time, and when I went to get him up from it, I decided it was time to call the doctor. He was having a hard time getting out of the bed, was still telling me his shoulder hurt, and I was worried. So, I called the doctor's office and was told to speak with a nurse. She suggested that we go to the ER since they have xrays.

Rave for RWJ in New Brunswick. We were surprised to discover they have a special pediatric emergency area. Despite the large number of people in the ER's waiting room, we were taken within 20 minutes of arriving. They have a special little people triage area, too, with stickers and other fun stuff around.

When he was examined by the nurse, he was raising his arm and doing things we couldn't get him to do. I was pretty sure that we had just overreacted and that he was fine with just a bruise. The doctor came in, and he wouldn't really move his arm so much for her. She sent him for an xray. It turned out his has a decent sized break in his collarbone.

He is in a sling for potentially 6 weeks. It's July 6. Six weeks from now is about the middle of August--he'll be confined for almost the entire summer.

I'm taking hope from a friend whose son is a little bit older and went through the same thing last month. She told me it was 3 weeks from falling out of bed to full recovery. Hopefully it will be the same way for A.

Sigh.

Of course I'm beating myself up over this one; shouldn't have taken the rails off his crib so early is the biggest echo in my head right now. But, my boy sure is a trooper. He's already aware of his limitations, and got upset with me when I tried to lay down to read his book--Mommy, we have to sit UP!