The day before school let out, her school held its annual school concert. It was ridiculously long and poorly planned (yes, the administration is getting a mad mama letter). Someone thought it would be brilliant to combine one song per class with a "graduation" speech night from 2 board members and 5 middle school kids, keeping dozens of 3-5 year olds and their families stuck in an auditorium until well past bedtime. This would have been a recipe for total mayhem anywhere else, but Montessori kids are such troopers. They sat patiently and quietly on the stage floor throughout the whole silly proceeding, from 6pm to 8:30pm (see why I'm unamused?)! Poor Ellie was so exhausted and miserable by the time we got her home, and then she had to go to school again the next day for a half-day. At least she could look forward to it because it was a party day. Otherwise, we would have kept her home. And it's just as well that she wasn't home. Papa had to take the day off to look after me!
Over half-way through the lengthy concert, I felt my leg falling asleep. Stephanie had been in my lap (exhausted too) the whole time, and her weight was getting to me. I thought I'd get up to stretch, not realizing my foot had already fallen asleep. Thank goodness I passed her to Markus before I stood up, because I went down HARD. I'd gotten dressed up for the Christmas theme, so I fell off my heels and torqued my foot between our row and the row of seats in front of us. The pain was searing, but for the sake of all eyes (especially Stephanie's), I just sat down and breathed hard for a long while. I managed to hobble, shoeless, to the car when the concert was over, supporting my weight on Markus's shoulder. He was on his motorcycle, so I drove us home using one big toe on the pedals (thank goodness no emergency braking was required!). Within an hour of that, I couldn't put any weight on it at all. Markus went out to the late-night pharmacy to rent me some crutches, and he had to stay home on Friday to drive Ellie to and from school and me to and from the doctor and the radiology clinic. Woo-hoo!
Fortunately, the x-ray showed nothing interesting. The doctor said it was probably a ligament, but if the damage didn't self-heal within a week, it might be a hairline fracture and I should come back. It's been a week now, but I've been off crutches since Monday. Markus had to be at work this week, so it's good that I could get back to mobility. I overdid it and my foot still hurts (worse today than other days, alas), but it's a lot better. Thank goodness.
This has been Ellie's first week home, and she's been adjusting to the big change in her routine. There has been a lot of whining, crying, and even hitting (hooray for learning from the other kids at school, sigh), and the tantrums have flown a bit too freely for my preference...but we think this will settle down as she does too. Mostly, we can tell she is thrilled to be home! She and Stephanie are great playmates, and Ellie is getting on quite well with Oma too.
Stephanie's sleep may be very slowly returning to normal. The newest development is that she is at the age when dreams become more vivid, and she's been sleeping fitfully. She might even be a sleep-walker. We had a strange episode in the middle of the night last night that makes me wonder, but time will tell. So far, Stephanie and Oma aren't sure of each other. Oma definitely prefers Ellie's orderliness and predictability to Stephanie's bohemian nudity and surprising resolve.
We'll continue to watch their relationship unfold, though I've got a separate blog post ready to go about a particularly funny encounter.
Markus will have a half-day at work today, and then he will only work two days next week before having a good bit of holiday at home himself. We're so happy!
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