Scaring Hunger Away

On Saturday, September 26, Tricia, Max and I went to Bloomers Garden Center to make scarecrows for a fundraising event for the Second Harvest North Central Food Bank of MN.

Tricia and I enjoyed making the scarecrows. While Max helped a bit, he enjoyed jumping in the straw piles and raking them back up more. Tricia made a female scarecrow and Max and I made a male. The names Max chose for them are Miss Sally (from Cars) and Dingo (not really sure where that came from). Miss Sally and Dingo were carefully placed in the back of Tricia's van for transport home...after a couple more stops.

Dingo

Miss Sally

The Gang

Scarecrow making can really make you hungry, so off to McDonalds we went. Even with an arm in a cast, Max climbed, crawled and slid around the Play Place. A couple of heads turned to watch the little guy in a cast run around like, well, like a three year-old boy. Cast or not, Max has got some energy to burn off.

Our royal McPrince

It was a very fun day and we plan on doing it again next year. We already have a couple of other friends and family members that want to go too. It was a fun way to support an important local agency.

See, he does rest!

3 years, 1 month, 1 week, 1 day

That's how long it took for Max to get his first broken bone. On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, Max was tooling around the yard in his go cart. Then, as he was turning, a wheel broke and the go cart tipped over (tipped out as Max says). As a natural reaction, Max put his arm out and the go cart cage landed on his arm.

Darrin and Uncle Steve made their way to the Hibbing ER with Max and made a call to me. Of course, I was soon on my way to Hibbing! Max broke both bones in his left arm, a few inches above the wrist. To reset this type of injury on a boy Max's age, they like to use general anesthesia to avoid traumatic memories for the child. I was OK with this, because I still have traumatic memories of my leg being reset when I was five!

The only problem was that the orthopedic doctor in Hibbing had just begun a two week vacation. So, we had to go to Duluth to get his arm reset. Off we go on our 90 minute drive to Duluth. Wait in the ER waiting room. Wait in the ER. More waiting in the ER. Ok, we're ready to take him upstairs. Some more waiting. Then we were able to go into the post-op room and sit with him for a bit before we were all moved to a regular room in the Peds wing.

Max was a trooper throughout the whole ordeal. No pain meds while we were waiting or for the drive to Duluth. The only crying and whining we got was because he was thirsty and we couldn't give him anything to drink.

While waiting in the peds room, the nurse brought Max a popsicle. He turns to us and says, "This popsicle isn't going to make my boo boo better, you know." Yes Max, we are fully aware of that fact!

Other Max-isms:
*Dad, you need to put window nets in my go carts. Racecars are supposed to have them you know.

*When asked if he wanted to get rid of the go cart, "NO! I just need some window nets!"

*In front of the anesthesiologist and female nurse... As he's peeking under the blankets and his gown, "Dad, my penis is growing!" Darrin, the nurse and I snicker. The anesthesiologist has a smirk on his face and says, "Well, that's interesting."

The pictures here were taken while Max was snoozing in the Hibbing ER.