“Oh, yeah. That so happened to me, too.”

Jack stopped by to show us the brand new red cast on his arm.  Evidence of a battle wound when he fell from the clubhouse in the backyard.  This reminded us of when Tucker broke his arm, a memory only I seem to hold with accuracy.

Here’s how I tell the story:

Tucker was 21 months old, and Tyler was six weeks old.  We put Tucker down for a nap on a Sunday afternoon, and he was angry to be inside his crib.  In his revolt against naptime, he jumped in a fit of fury. With his tummy against the rail, he became top-heavy and flipped himself out onto the floor.

Seconds later as he screamed, I found him lying on his back, and I’m still not sure how that happened.  Quite a flip, I guess.  Anyway, it was a clean break across his wrist.  He learned a clever way to get his cast off, by wedging it into the grocery cart and then sliding his arm out.  Five times.  In the end, an orthopedic specialist put him in a cast up to his shoulder, just so Houdini would keep it on.

And if it wasn’t already tricky enough to add a newborn to the toddler dynamics at our house, now I had a toddler with a red fiberglass club to contend with.

**

Here’s how Tucker tells that story:

“Oh, you have a broken arm?  Oh, that so happened to me too.  One time?  When I was a baby? My mommy put me to bed in a crib with no sides to it.  And I was so mad, and I double flipped over the side and half of my whole arm came off.”