Broken Braden

Finley was born with clubfoot. He went through a series of casts when he was a baby--so I'm always friendly and interested when I run into other moms who have babies in casts.  I have a vivid memory of carrying tiny Finley in the Baby Bjorn through Whole Foods and running into a mama carrying a much bigger two or three year old in a carrier--with a cast on his little leg.  After kind of stalking her through a few aisles I tried to not weirdly ask about her baby's cast.  And this has stuck in my mind forever: he was going down a water slide with his dad and his leg got snagged on something, bent back and broke.

Since then, I've had two friends whose little boys have also had leg injuries from going down slides with an adult.  The statistics are telling: 14% of fractures in toddlers are from sliding with a parent.  That's a lot.  And even though I talk about it a lot, and always have anxiety about the boys going down slides, it still happened to Braden.

My sister and I took the boys to what I had already deemed the world's most dangerous park (the pictures of Braden in blue are of our first trip to the park). It's essentially an enormous rock pile with big tunnels going through it and ladders going up to the top where there are two big twisty slides going down. I had said on several occasions that a park like that would NOT fly on the East Coast. It's terrifying. It was sunny and hot and pregnant Rachel couldn't help Braden down the slide--so I sent him down with Laura.  I quickly told her about the dangers of sliding with kids and down they went.  And about halfway down--tears.  We're not really sure what happened, but I do know my sweet baby hasn't taken a step since it happened on Thursday.  I think his shoe choice was also poor--the Crocs caught on the slide and probably threw his leg back.  We took him to get x-rays and nothing is fractured visibly, so it's either sprained or a greenstick fracture that's too tiny to show up.  

The first few days he was a real sad pup--not sure how to handle the injury and just wanting to be held.  We're doing better now--he's figured crawling out, standing on one leg and how to kind of protect his ankle. When I carry him (everywhere) he melts into me and holds on so tight--it's heartbreaking.  I'm grateful it wasn't worse--no cast, nothing broken seriously.  Just a little guy with a sore leg. Bottom line is: he's fine. He's extra cuddly, needs to be carried everywhere and gets frustrated quickly when he can't do something he wants to do. He's gotten better at standing on one leg and crawling so is coping much better than he did the first few days. He still has some very silly moments and is happy most of the time--hopefully walking again is just around the corner. I am a little nervous about our flight back east on Tuesday and trying to move into a new house following that...

It seems like it would always be safer to accompany your kiddo down the slide, but often it's not. And it's something you may not think about until it's too late. With the warmer weather comes more time at parks--so tell a friend today to be careful with their kiddo. Here are my recommendations:

• Don't go down the slide with your kid.
• If they are too little to go down alone, put them only halfway up or let them go down on their belly.
• Choose shoes that won't grip the edge of the slide.
• If you do go down with your kid, put them ON TOP of your lap, not between your legs, and hold their ankles together so they can't slip out. Maybe that will help?
• Don't go down the slide with your kid.

(Unrelated sidenote: most of these pictures were on a phone camera--which made me feel creative about processing them. And therefore I used... CLIPPING MASKS! I'm proud.)