Go Pirates!

It had been a couple of years since Trey had played football so he was really excited to get to play school ball this year. His 7th grade year started at 6:30am on the first day of school and continues to start that early almost every day. The boys have to be dressed out and on the field by 7:00. The coach's motto - to be early is to be on time, to be on time is late. He does not ever complain about the early mornings and is still functioning until about 9:30 on those nights.

Here are some pictures from a couple of games. He started out on the "A" team, not getting much playing time. He has since been moved to the "B" team as a starter with a lot more playing time. Trey enjoys this opportunity so much more.

Trey makes me proud both on and off the football field. He is full of dedication and loyalty - to his team, to his friends and to his family. He truly has a heart of gold.

you live and you learn

As I was creating my weekend to-do list, I added blogging to that list. And then it hit me that it could be the longest blog entry ever - so much has happened in the past eight weeks. Here we are in October and starting the second six weeks of school. I can't believe it. Seriously. Where has this year gone? With five kiddos, two summer vacations, sports and activities  - it's no wonder that the days and weeks and months have flown past us. And, have we really been back in school for an entire six weeks? Obviously we have, report cards are coming out to prove it.

I'll first blog about Clayson. Boys will be boys. Boys will jump off of roofs. Boys will have broken bones. This boy experienced his second arm injury, his second cast and his second surgery all just before school started.

Clayson is a highly motivated child, especially when it comes to money. He has hopes and dreams of getting a truck and some new guns for hunting. He loves to work with my dad and with his dad.  He had gone to work on a carport with Jared one Monday. I was on the phone trying to find a place that had shorts his size and Clayson beeped in... once, twice and on the third time I knew that I needed to hang up from being on hold because I knew at this point, something was wrong. Clayson tells me that he is on the way to the hospital and that he thinks his wrist is broken. I head out to the hospital, Medical City Children's, in Dallas. In the meantime, I find out how this injury has occured: he chose to jump off of the nine foot roof instead of using the available ladder. In his mind, it's a nine foot roof, he is six foot tall, so it's just a three foot fall... until his size 14 foot catches the guttering and he plunges the entire nine foot and lands on his wrist. You live...and you learn.

After an x-ray and a quick visit with a doctor, we find out that it is broken and surgery may or may not needed. We follow up with an orthopedic surgeon several days later and learn that he has fractured his growth plate, has another vertical break and the only way to fix this is to place pins in his wrist to push and keep the bones in place.

On August 23rd, Clayson had the necessary surgery. He did not seem nervous at all. I had taken care of his one fear, the I.V., and they were going to start this in the operating room after he was able to breathe in some gas. (He comes by his fear of needles naturally. I hate needles and in all my 14 3/4 years of being a mom, I have never seen my kids get a shot or get blood drawn. I can't handle it.) The surgery lasted about an hour and a half, everything went as well as the doctor had hoped. I did not pass out during this recovery visit with him. (After his last surgery I did.) He came around slowly and was able to eat a couple of crackers and drink enough Dr. Pepper to go home and completely recover.

I had to rush home from all of this excitement and prepare for 5th grade 'Meet The Teacher' night. Talk about a whirlwind of a day, I was never so glad for this stressful day to end.

Here are some pictures of his journey through the ER, to surgery, to the pin removal. (Warning: the last pictures are kind of gross...)



At the ER, still able to text...



This is at the surgery center, his brother and sister were there for moral support.
These pictures are all before surgery.



This is after surgery, it took him a while to come to and be able to eat and drink enough to go home. The picture in the bottom corner is the pins. They were kept covered with a cast, thank goodness.

Sorry this is so graphic. This is his final visit in which the pins were removed. Ewwwww.

Clayson was a real trooper. He started high school just four days after surgery. He is thankful to have his cast off so that he can enjoy golf and go hunting. I am thankful that it is off so that he can take normal showers.



Stay tuned for more blogging. Still to come, school stuff and Trey's football pictures.

For now, I am signing off and going to bed. It's Friday night and if I had not taken a short nap earlier, I would have already crashed out.

Have a great weekend :)