Father of the Year

Last weekend was pretty busy. We’d just had two days of having all of our stuff from Canada land in our house in boxes and having to arrange and unpack everything. On top of that there was the apartment that we had to clear of all the stuff that we’d been surviving with.

As all of this is happening the kids were oscillating between helping, un-helping and generally ignoring the fact that beyond their own possessions, there were other things that needed to be loaded and unloaded from cars. Kids are like that. Sam and Thomas I must say won the prize for most consistent application of the help factor out of the four of them, whilst Michael was being a little more inventive, deciding that it was quicker to rip-stick the goods from the apartment to the car.

The rip-sticks even made it out into the church car park whilst the kids waited for us to finish gas-bagging.

As we went to leave the church, Thomas went for one last run down the slope of the carpark to jump in and stash the rip-stick. As he did so, the additional speed undid him and he fell backwards, to land solidly upon his rump, his hands out behind him in an effort to take a little of the sting out. He shrugged off the embarrassment and sheepishly boarded the van.

When we were then at the apartment, he complained that his wrist was sore and that he wouldn’t really be able to help to carry very much. Caroline suggested that we’d need to take him to the hospital in amongst everything else that was going on for the day. To say that I was excited about going to the Women’s and Children’s to spend a couple of hour waiting to be seen would have quite simply been a big fat lie.

So I did what any good father would do. Told him to suck it up, see how it went and carry on.

As the day proceeded, he seemed to favour it less and I was happy that the right decision had been made (having convinced Thomas that it was likely just a bit sprained and that it would come good over the next couple of days).

During the week, the pain continued and Caroline decided (like good Mothers do) that it would be worth getting him checked out by the doctor after all. This resulted in a trip to the radiologist. When he came home last night, there was no sign of a cast, but Thomas was happy enough to let me know with one of those little Thomas smirks that he had a fracture. I played it up and let him know that at least with no cast, he wouldn’t be too restricted.

Then today the phone rang at work. It was Caroline to inform me that Thomas would have to go back to the doctor tomorrow ... yes, for a cast of course.

“Just a sprain,” he said. Father of the year for sure.

*(As a side note, those toys have been a huge hit - I think the fact that they received them at Christmas last year when the world was doused in snow was a bit of a let down for them initially)