The cast is off...

...and another is put in its place.  Below is the final result of the last cast.  Mandi, Nolan's favorite pharmacy tech, wrote her name and I wrote Mom and Ethan.  Brenden came home from school and I told him he could write his name.  And then I made the mistake of walking away.  By the time I got back, there was no room for anyone else to write their name.  All the way up the side it says, "get will soon" and then Brenden decorated ALL over the rest of it.  I really rather like it though.
I took Nolan to have his cast removed today.  He kept telling them he wanted to keep it on.  The nurse looked at me and said, "So, what do you want me to do?"  I figured, he can't keep it on forever, so we might as well take it off whether he wants to or not.  I guess maybe I should listen to my kids more often.

The nurse sawed his cast off - which was scary for both Nolan and me.  I know nothing can happen to him, but it's still pretty scary to watch.  He shook through the whole thing, but stayed mostly still.  He was then taken for an x-ray.  The doctor came in and showed me the x-ray.  The bone is starting to form new bone around the fracture, but the fracture is still there.  He said if Nolan were an adult, he would just put him in a walking boot and send him on his way, but there aren't walking boots small enough for Nolan.  He gave me two options: take him home with no cast and just be very careful until it was fully healed (but if there was a problem, we could take him back for a cast later today or tomorrow) or re-cast his leg with a shorter cast so he can walk in it.  There is no "careful" in a house with three little boys, so I chose the second option.  The doctor said it would be pretty easy to re-break if we took the non-cast option, so that pretty much made the decision for me.  

Nolan's knee is pretty stiff from being straight for so long.  He says it hurts to bend it.  We are back to square one with getting him independent again.  He won't even touch his toes to the ground.  Hopefully he gains some confidence soon.  He was so excited to get to wear shoes again!  He wanted to go outside and play.  We go back in two weeks.

I took cookies with me to the doctor's office today.  They all seemed slightly happier to help me this time.  

Doug took Brenden clamming on Saturday.  Brenden was pretty disappointed with what they found and looked up at Doug and said, "I thought you were supposed to be an expert!"  He also kept saying, "This is terrible!" and told Doug several times, "I'm so mad at you!" because they didn't find many clams.*

I have not been blogging because I have been:

-trying to get blue food coloring out of carpet and clothes

-doing lots of laundry.  It's just so fun now!

-cleaning up eggs splattered across the kitchen floor - twice

-cleaning up after an entire winter of not only my 3 dogs, but every neighborhood dog pooping in my yard.  (The plus side is, I got my wish to finally work in my yard!)

-never-endingly calling insurance.  They even managed to pay the wrong provider for a service!  They paid our audiologist for Ethan's speech therapy.

-doing everything else that moms do.

But, we've all been happy.  That's the best part.

*As a side note: If your children, like mine, think everything is your fault and they tell you often that they are mad at you, purchase the book called, I was so mad by Mercer Mayer.  It is funny and Brenden read it the first time and said, "That's just like me!"