A BROKEN, NOW MENDED, WING
A friend of ours mentioned that each of her three daughters broke an arm now and then. Though the news came after our wee bird had fallen, broken, and healed, it was still a word that brought sweet relief.

Though we don't know exactly how it happened, we suspect it was during one of those thousand daily stumbles when a toddler first learns her freedom to walk about the land as she'd like. The bad news: Greenstick fracture on her left radius (that's the thumb side, I think). The good news: probably happened a week before we saw our friend - the orthopedist - who shot a few X-rays and determined the trouble, fabricated a cast, and sent us home. As you can see, that afternoon, Zoe was no worse for the experience. The cast became a new little sister - something to throw around and mistreat, with little-to-no consequences to the cast (though our furniture knows still that "The Casted One" was around.

Two weeks later, the cast came off. She is fine. We decided to post this now, so that we would qualify for the Bad Parents of the Year Awards Program which airs on ABC on Thanksgiving night. If you think about it, cast a vote for us!

...and thanks for saying, "this happens to us all." Inadequacy and sadness over a little bird's fall from the nest is soothed best in a flock where bruises and scars are collected and remembered aloud, not shamefully, but with joy, now that the pain has past.