Big Owie=1, Elizabeth=0

So after 3 children and nearly 7 years, last night was the closest we came to taking a child to the hospital for a broken bone. Luckily, we didn't have to, but Elizabeth went from a walking and running child back to a crawling, crying baby in the blink of an eye. All thanks to a big "owie!". It was clean sweep time for the boys (they have 30 timed minutes to clean the bedroom, living room and hallway. If they don't complete their tasks to my inspection, they don't get to watch t.v. for the evening.) Lucas apparently didn't want Elizabeth in his room, so he put the kids' stools in the doorway. Why he didn't just shut the door, I have no idea. Probably so he could continue to monkey-around with his brother instead of clean.

Elizabeth, being the smart girl she is, climbed onto the stools and was standing there, just inside Lucas' room. Lucas decided that he didn't like that and pushed her off. Landing wrong on her foot/ankle and subsequently screaming incessantly. She pushed herself up and wobbled/half crawled to me and I saw that something was majorly wrong from the way she was limping. I had her try to take a couple steps towards Daddy and it was no better. He picked her up and felt her leg and the look of concern on his face made me more than a little worried. Chuck doesn't get that look too often. But, in retrospect, Elizabeth is his little girl.

We took off Elizabeth's pants and pushed and prodded and twisted her leg and nothing much happened other than an occassional smile from a ticklish spot. Her foot though...that was a different story. When you pushed on it, you'd get a wince or a loud "ow, ow, ow!" After we decided we'd take the wait and see approach as nothing appeared broken, we put her back on the floor where she tried to run and instead screamed and fell to the floor to crawl. She couldn't quite get it figured out that she just couldn't run yesterday...or jump off the counch.

Luckily, this morning she was gingerly walking on her foot; after I encouraged her to walk and she realized she could. I'll be curious to see how she's acting tonight when I get home. Elizabeth seemed to be soaking in the attention, so she may milk this for a couple more days ;)