May 6, 2009
We had a great time this past weekend. We celebrated Korean Children’s Day with Benjamin at the Korean Presbyterian Church. Each year the church sponsors this celebration. It is really nice because we are able to mingle with other families who have adopted children from Korea. The Korean members of the church do such a nice job hosting this event. There’s always some sort of cultural presentation at the beginning of the day. This year, a Korean Children’s Choir sang several children’s song in Korean. It was so cute. Next, there was a mask dance demonstration followed by a Tae Kwon Do demonstration. Benjamin was fascinated by that! I can’t wait for him to be old enough to try that. - After the opening, there are several activities for the kids ranging from calligraphy, to playing Korean drums, to creating paperdolls wearing traditional Korean dress. After the activities, the church members treat us to a AWESOME lunch of traditional Korean food. (Brad and I LOVE this part of the day!!)
Everything was going well until…Brad was holding Benjamin’s hand as they were walking. Ben decided he was going to sit, and Brad’s immediate reaction was to pull him up. Well, he heard a little pop, and that’s when Benjamin started to complain his arm hurt.
So a few hours late…We took Benjamin to the emergency room Saturday after lunch. He kept holding onto his arm and complaining it was hurting. We wanted to be sure it wasn’t broken. - They ended up taking x-rays of his wrist because they thought it looked a little swollen. (I thought it was just baby fat, but what do I know.) Apparently I knew a little something because it wasn’t broken. When the doc came in to see him, he and Ally were “fighting” over a chair. Benjamin used both arms to pull himself up onto the chair. At that point, the doc was broken (x-rays confirmed that as well). He diagnosed him with Nurse Maid’s Elbow. Apparently tendons and ligaments are stronger than bones in younger children. The bones in his elbow did separate (the reason Brad heard a little pop) and the tendon got caught between the bones. That was causing the pain. (This is not an uncommon “injury” in children this age.) Usually the doc pops the elbow to get the tendon to go back where it belongs, but that wasn’t necessary. Benjamin probably did that himself by pulling himself up onto the chair. After he’d done that, he was fine. After an hour visit in the ER (honestly, we were surprised we were in and out that fast) he was happy as a clam, and so were we!