Rough-housing with Daddy

Last night's episode of "Rough-housing with Daddy" led to an unexpected visit to our Urgent Care. Nick had been playing around with Ellie and trying to get her to walk when she dropped to her knees with Nick still holding onto her hand. This led to a very distressed Eliana. After about an hour, we realized that she wasn't moving her left arm at all - it was just hanging there. She refused to use it to grab for anything and started screaming if we touched it at all. Quite honestly, she looked like a sad, injured little puppy.

Turns out our little girl had a case of Nursemaid's Elbow. I've always hated that name because I feel like it gives an unfair stigma to nannies everywhere. But, apparently, it does stem from the days when the nanny (or nursemaid) would yank the child's arm to get them to walk faster. It basically pulls the child's elbow out of joint, causing lots of pain. Thankfully, fixing the problem is actually quite easy, though certainly painful for the child.

We were very blessed to get into the urgent care as the last patients of the night (otherwise we would have had to go to the ER), and the staff there was very kind and helpful. Ellie was examined and they concluded quite quickly that it was a case of nursemaid's elbow. They took her in for x-rays and when they positioned the arm for x-rays, her elbow popped back into place. Within 2 minutes she was using that arm to eat her sucker. :) What an ordeal...