Family Day--3 yrs. home!

August 2008 is the month that we finally arrived home with Maya and Tristan from Russia, so every year we celebrate "Family Day" for the day all of us were together for the first time.

August is also the month of the annual adoption picnic that our adoption agency holds in Ann Arbor. This is especially appropriate for our Family Day anniversary! It is always fun to see everyone each year, and for Maya and Tristan to meet other kids who are from Russia. The gathering gets bigger each year as more and more little cuties find families.Some of our kids have been a bit jealous that Emma and Isabelle were taking ice skating lessons, so we decided that we would take them all ice skating for family day. Everyone was thrilled! The day came, we bundled them up in snowsuits to give them some padding, and off we went. Sebastian took a nap at Sandy and Robert's home during our outing.

Since we had 3 little people who had never been on the ice before, I gave them all a talk about how they were all going to fall down a lot, and that that was okay, that they just needed to be tough and get back up and try some more. The first thing we did was have Isabelle teach them how to get back up on their own on the ice. This turned out to be wise because they would not hold their feet still and were falling every 5-10 seconds. They were having a great time though!Unfortunately after about 10-15 minutes of skating Maya fell and couldn't get back up. After sitting out and resting a bit, she still didn't want to skate, so I took her skates off and found that she still couldn't put any weight on her right foot. At this point I thought she had sprained her ankle so we put some ice on it and had her sit out the rest of the time. After we were done and Jeff carried Maya out to the car, Isabelle burst into tears because she wanted to be carried too! I don't think she realized the serious nature of Maya's injury--actually none of us did at this point.

We had dinner with Sandy and Robert that night and just had Maya sit on the couch with her foot elevated and ice on it. On Sunday she still couldn't put any weight on it, and she just had to sit on the couch with it elevated on a pillow. All the kids felt bad for her and brought her little cards and treasures. I think Isabelle probably made her 30 get well cards. I was starting to get worried so Monday I took her to the doctor to get x-rays. I figured it was just a bad sprain, cause you can't break a bone by just falling on the ice when you are going about 1 mile/hour, right? But I wanted to make sure. The doctor though it was just a sprain too, but ordered the x-rays. It was a good thing too because it showed that her tibia was broken clean through!

Tuesday found us at the orthopedist's office with a purple full leg cast on the little lady! They recommended crutches for her, so I got them, but I figured that teaching her to use them would be a lot like teaching her to ice skate and she might break her other leg. She wasn't getting it at all that first day, but after I explained that she wouldn't be able to go to school, or church, or even outside until she learned to use them, she became much more determined and had them down by the second day! I am so proud of her for sticking with it. She will have the full leg cast on for 3 weeks, then one that starts below the knee for another 3 weeks.What a way to start 1st grade!