Dylan’s busted clavicle

As Levi mentioned last week in his post last week, I was recently doored by a car two weeks ago. My clavicle was fractured in several places, and I had surgery last week to put a plate and several screws in to realign the break. Fortunately I didn’t have any other major injuries other than some pretty colorful bruising.

The past two weeks have been a bit of a blur, but I have been reminded of how valuable our friends and family are to the FaB Family. People have stepped up to fill in for my injured arm and then some. My partner’s mom was coincidentally in town when I was hit and she extended her stay by several days to help take care of Little Bear. My mom then came to help and stayed for a few days. She took me to surgery so Rebecca could work. Both of Little Bear’s grandmas handled soothing her if she woke in the night. Our friend Billy set up a schedule of friends dropping off dinner for us for a week, even though I was being Minnesotan and waffling about needing dinner help for the whole week (Billy was right, we totally needed help for the whole week).

Dylan’s fixed clavicle

Friends cooked us dinner, helped play with Little Bear, mowed our lawn, and generally offered to do whatever we needed help with and I am so grateful for it. I suppose my general point here is that even if it doesn’t seem like much, keep offering to help out the parents in your community. Be that extra arm or two to put the kid in the high chair, sing a silly song, mow the lawn, read a book, whatever. Even if you frequently get turned down, or if you asked to do something that seems sort of odd, it all helps and will be appreciated even if the parents can’t always thank you fully. We are still tired over here at the FaB house, but doing so much better than if we had needed to cope with my broken clavicle without all the care and help we’ve been given. While I am tired and sore and angry about getting doored, I am also fortunate and grateful to have such a strong network of chosen and biologically family.

Little Bear has definitely noticed that I’m injured. Granted, it’s hard not to with the giant “Ultrasling III” I am wearing. The night I got home from the ER right after getting hit she climbed into my lap and sat quietly without wiggling while I read to her. Let me tell you, having an almost two year old sit still in your lap is pretty miraculous. Now that I’ve had surgery Little Bear keeps pointing to my bandage and saying “Dada owie, ba ba!” Translation: Daddy has an owie and is wearing a bandaid. I went up to sooth her when she woke up in the night and she tapped my bandaid, said “Dada owie,” kissed my other clavicle, and then clapped because she was so pleased with herself. It still took a while to get her to go back to sleep, but at least she was adorable.