Backtrack - the last days of the cast.

Though Natalie's cast kept us from tramping around in the mountains through the melting snow and mud we still managed to get out and enjoy the beautiful spring weather last week. We spent the entire afternoon out back on Thursday, painting, blowing bubbles, and checking out the garden in its full mid-winter mess. On Wednesday morning we decided to take a last minute bus ride into Boulder with Nupur and Aanya! The bus is so novel and exciting, we couldn't wait for it to get going.
The girls liked looking at their "tickets" (transfer slips - even though we weren't transferring).

And they were especially cuddly with each other that day which was so darn cute!
Waiting for the light to change.
These kids just love being outside. Everything is a game or a toy. What a fun bench!
They walked around this big planter about a dozen times! A balance beam! Natalie was only slightly slowed down by the width of her cast foot.
And here are two very tired girls on the bus ride back. I'm surprised they made it the whole way!
The next morning Natalie helped me make some pancakes before her doctor's appointment to get her cast off.
In the lobby at the Children's Hospital there were two other kids with appointments to get their casts off too. Natalie was the youngest. Once in the room she seemed a little nervous. She's had too many experiences in Doctor's offices now. Most notably were the stitches she got about five months ago which have since made even the most benign doctor's visits a bit traumatic. She liked wearing the earphones to muffle the noise from the saw though.
She wasn't so sure about the actual sawing-off process though... But she handled it better than some of the kids in the other rooms who I could hear screaming once the saw started.
And then there was the cast! She likes having that. Now when people tell her how well she's doing and ask her what happened to her cast she says "Daddy put it up on a shelf!"
Her leg is a bit rough around the edges still.
The doctor warned us not to pressure her into walking the first few days. She would probably be too sensitive about it, and everything would feel weird. He said he just would like to see her put a bit of pressure on it to make sure it didn't hurt her. Natalie was at this point struggling to get down from the table. On the ground she started heading for the door. No problem in the walking department! We could barely get her shoes on before she was down the hall!
And she hasn't stopped going since. She runs with a little hitch still, and they expect a limp for about a month, but it's not too noticeable. No more gym for a month or so, but we're looking forward to getting back to the pool, and maybe going for a hike and getting good and muddy again!

hanging with her friends

Natalie's cast comes off tomorrow. So I thought I'd show you a few more pictures of what we've been up to. About the only thing we can't do while she's still got the cast on is bathe her and swim... so tomorrow I think we'll start with the bath! It'll be great!

Natalie's showing us her edamame! Ummm... see food!
One of multiple trips to the museum in the past weeks.
Tutu-making playgroup. Poor Owen was not happy to be on the couch in the tutu.
Towards the end of playgroup Natalie was ready for nap time. But she didn't want Lucy to leave too....
Another trip to the museum, with Nupur and Aanya!
Caribou!
We ran into Allie and Zane at a local clothes shop... the kids kept each other out of trouble digging through Allie's purse! Sorry Allie.
Riding the giraffe at the grocery store. I've got to start carrying pennies.
Thanks grandma for the huge hunk of sugar on a stick! Chocolate-covered rice crispy treat... the white shirt came off moments after the picture.
And Natalie's newest skill is peeling a cutie all by herself! She was pretty proud of herself.
And here she is modeling her new mommy-made purse. Monkey print and full of little people farm animals. Doesn't she look like a big girl?!
Sigh.

she's ready for juilliard

Natalie and I worked out together the other day. This kid has some moves like you've never seen. We did the Bollywood Dance Workout with Hemalayaa. I even set Natalie up with the little jangly scarf I use when I do bellydancing videos, (you guys were all already aware of my extreme dorkiness, right?)

So here's a little video of her dancing. She was interested off and on through the hour long DVD.

She gets her cast off this Thursday, so we're really on the home stretch! Just in time for spring.

V-Day Weekend

We had a great three-day family weekend. We had no plans for the weekend so played each day by ear, and ended up having lots of fun, and more importantly enjoying a nap every day!!

We started off the weekend right, having dinner and watching the Olympic opening ceremony with some friends. Then on Saturday morning we decided to head to the butterfly pavilion and see what that was all about.

The Butterfly Pavilion is an invertebrate zoo with rooms lined with aquariums and terrariums containing all sorts of interesting creatures from sea stars to giant cockroaches!

This guy greeted us at the door.

And I got to hold Rosie, (I even got a sticker proclaiming the same.) Natalie was too young to hold the Tarantula, and DH was not interested.
We had the most fun in a sun-filled "rainforest" housing thousands of free-flying butterflies and moths. This is a giant Owl was enjoying some tasty rotting fruit from one of the many feeders.
Unfortunately it was so sunny in that room that most of our pictures didn't turn out. But we did manage to capture these rare beauties a bit later.

The next day was Valentines day. It was so snowy that it didn't look like our tentative plan to go to the zoo was going to pan out. So we had a relaxing morning at home. After our naps we decided to give the zoo a chance in the warmer, (above freezing at least!) afternoon temperatures. It turned out to be a perfect time to spend a few hours at the zoo. We missed all the morning Luner New Year festivities, but the place was all ours so it was worth it.

The Lions were up and about....

And so was the tiger, (it is now year of the tiger by the way.)

We all enjoyed some hot cocoa to fend off the cold while we watched the polar bears look for all the food the keepers had just spread around for them.

I definitely recommend the zoo on a snowy day. Especially if the sun is out. It was great. And there are always the indoor exhibits around if you need to duck out of the cold for a bit. We followed another keeper around bird world where she was dropping of crickets and grubs. It was also interesting to see the winter quarters for the flamingos! Looked like quite the party. We'd been wondering where they all were on such a chilly day!

Yesterday was much warmer. DH gave me a belated V-day present and took Nat out for the morning shopping. When they got back we had our third great nap of the weekend, and then enjoyed the afternoon at home just hanging out. Here are my two favorite people playing with some bubbles while the grill heats up. Nat is also in her belated V-day outfit. And she's clean too! We managed to give her a very thorough bath this weekend. Hair and all. It's a real chore with the cast on, but we got it done.
Not sure what this face is about, but wanted to share it anyway. Hopefully it doesn't come out for all my pictures from now on!

Not slowing her down.

Natalie has had her cast on for a week now. She got it last Thursday morning.
Here she is trying it out. She was a bit hesitant to walk on it at first, so we just took her to lunch and then put her down for her nap.
But the doctor said she should be putting weight on it as soon as possible for it to start healing, so I decided to take her over to Aanya's house to go play with some different toys. And it worked. Soon enough Natalie was running around on her new cast, jumping with Aanya on the bed and the couch and anywhere else she could climb onto.
And she's been going ever since. Here she is reading at the library.
And giving Kenze a high five! Kenze came to visit to compare casts. Hers will come off in another week or so, Natalie has hers for another three. Natalie has been getting around just great all week. We played on the indoor playground at the rec center today, and have been running around outside and inside almost every day. We even went to her friend's birthday party at a little gym on Saturday and she did everything she normally would have done, including the balance beam and the trampoline!

We'll see how she looks in another three weeks after no real bath, but thank goodness, other than that it doesn't seem like the cast is really cramping her style!

a fracture

This is cautionary tale about letting your kids go down slides on someone's lap. Yesterday, while taking advantage of some late afternoon sunshine and warmth, we went to the park with my dad. After running around for a while my dad took Natalie down the slide. She was crying almost as soon as she got off of the slide, and we just thought she'd been scared. But after a bit, when she couldn't be calmed, I took her back to the car, and on the way, between sobs, she told me her leg was hurt. After she kept pointing to the same spot, and still could not settle, I called her doctor's and they fit us in as soon as we could get there. The X-rays showed very clearly the buckle fracture in Natalie's right tibia, down near her ankle.

Currently she has a splint on, which seems a lot like a cast to me, but we can take it off if we have too. Tomorrow, if there's not much swelling, we have a morning appointment to get a cast put on it. Natalie says she wants red, so we'll see.

So we skipped gym this morning, (as I think we will continue to for the next who-knows-how-many weeks. ) Instead we crashed storytime at the library to visit with our friends. Natalie says she's "sad" when the other kids do things like jump and run and play, but supposedly she should be able to put some weight on the real cast which will allow her more mobility. We still had fun at storytime and brought home tons of new books to enjoy while she's laid up. I'm also planning some craft projects. So as long as my creativity holds, I think we can keep the kiddo occupied for a while. Maybe the groundhog was right and we won't feel too bad staying indoors for a while.