This has been a very eventful week.  Wednesday, Scarlett was sitting in my lap and hopped down to get her shoes on and just slightly fractured one of the metatarsal bones in her left foot.  She’s the first of my three children to break anything.  Here’s what I learned about your toddler breaking a bone.

1.  You’ll feel guilty no matter what.  It wasn’t my fault.  I didn’t drop her or step on her foot or drive over her…but I felt so bad just knowing she was hurt.

2.  You’ll probably have to go spend half your day at urgent care.  I called our pediatrician but they don’t have an xray machine in their office so they sent me over to urgent care and we spent nearly 3 hours there…thankfully she wasn’t in pain unless she was standing on her foot.

3.  Toddlers are easily bribed by stickers.  I know you parents of toddlers already know this.  I was so glad that the xray staff (ok i know they have a better name than that but i can’t remember it…radiography?) had lots of stickers and Scarlett got one for each picture she let us take of her foot.

4.   Your toddler is going to want to take their boot off 100 times a day.  We fancied it up with blue ribbons to encourage her to keep it on.  I painted her little toes as well.  Day two was much better than day one and once she did take it off and realized that her foot hurts without it so she was much more compliant after that.

5.  A little injured toddler…though it’s sad…is kind of cute.  I know it’s horrible to say that, right?  Her boot is called a “wee walker boot” and she’s waddling all around with this clunky rhythm.  I am glad she’s not hurting right now and I am really looking forward to her not having to wear the boot but for now…we’ll make the most of it.  Thankfully she hasn’t learned yet that she can kick and really injure anyone.  Today’s the first day back at school after the incident and I’m hoping she can still play to her heart’s content!