The Boot

Well, our little Jamie has a broken bone in his foot. For the most part it sounds worse than it is. We don't know how exactly it happened, but a couple of weeks ago he began limping and it seemed to really bother him so we took him to the pediatrician, who suspected a slight fracture but wasn't sure and so referred us to an orthopaedist. This was, of course, after seeing us at 11:10 for a 10:00 appt. We had been waiting in the room for about 45 minutes and the boys were being really good. Finally poor Connor, who has really gotten the hang of things with the potty by the way, tells me he needs to go. At which point the doctor arrives and is annoyed that we have to leave.

So off we go to the orthopaedist, whose office is on the 26th floor of the medical tower. The boys like this. We get up there and Connor goes shooting off to the windows. I start filling out paper work and he is there with his wee arms resting on the sill, engaged in vigorous conversation with a woman sitting next to him. They are pointing out the window, finding things, comparing notes. Very cute. We finally get settled and I get the boys some water, before I realize that we forgot the X-rays, the all-important X-rays, in the car, which was valet parked. So back out we head to get them, then all the way back up. About 40 minutes after the appt. time we are called back into the room, where we spend another hour or so. We actually had a great time, playing the exciting "The person who is [blank] is a goose" game. Jamie made this up and it's simple. Describe something about the other person, perhaps their location, appearance or some other detail and say that person is a goose, e.g.: "The person with glasses on is a goose." If you are the target of this, your goal is to change the detail in question if possible. Good times, as Connor would say.

Finally the doc came, looked at the all-important x-rays, confirmed the diagnosis and recommended putting Jamie in a protective boot. This was primarily, he said, to slow him down and keep him from re-injuring it. At the first mention of this, Jamie crawled under a chair and refused to come out. As the technician came to fit the boot Jamie began an absolute knock-down, go to the mattresses fit. Didn't want the boot. Screamed his head off. First I had to drag him out from under the chair as he held on to the legs for dear life. Then it took three of us to hold him down while the boot went on. The screaming continued out into the hallway, past the nurses' station, where, happily, the doctor was sitting. At this point, most activity in the entire office had ceased to watch Jamie throw down. The doc was sympathetic and asked if this was likely to continue. Knowing Jamie's tenaciousness I said indeed it was. To the relief of everyone within a half-mile radius, we then got the OK to take it off, but with instructions to try and keep him from doing too much on it.

Now, this is about like trying to keep the Pope from being Catholic, but as the boot came off I told Jamie he would have to take it easy and if he didn't the boot would come back. We decided on the codeword "Boot" for when he needed to settle down and it's actually helped. The other day he was jumping up and down, as is his wont, and then suddenly he stopped and clapped a hand over his mouth. "What?" we asked, and he replied simply, almost reverently: "Boot."

Happily, he is reporting much less pain so it seems all is healing well.