Another Broken Bone!!!!= Calcium and Vitamin D Supplements for Everyone

One night in June, Grant came in and said, "Ang, I think Karina just broke her arm."  I was, like, "WHAT???" I was doing the dishes and she was just right outside in the backyard.  I hadn't heard a scream or any crying.  He told me that when he went out there, she was just sitting there on the grass all mad and looked like she was really hurting, only she wouldn't move and didn't want him to pick her up because she was so mad!  She was holding her arm.  It turned out that she got bored going down the slide and decided she would just jump over it.  Well, she fell on her arm.  I couldn't believe it!  Not again!! 

Our Doctor was out of town, however, we saw Dr. P, who is the Doctor for my brother's kids and we have seen several times.  I was all upset about yet another broken bone and he was so super nice about the whole thing.  He told me that every story I told matched the breaks perfectly and that breaks like this weren't the type they saw in cases of abuse anyway.  And he said that buckle fractures of the wrist are the most common break in children, by far!  (7/8 of our major breaks were buckle fractures of the wrist.)  He said not to worry at all.  He made me feel much better!  Later, I talked to our Doctor and she said we could do two things-- 1) blood test all the girls for Vitamin D deficiency, OR 2) just assume they all have it and put them all on 1000 iu's.  I opted for the 2nd, since it doesn't hurt them to be on Vitamin D (it's not like Iron or something.)  So we bought lots of Vitamins for the whole family!!  We also bumped our milk from skim to 2% and never say No to the kids when they ask for a drink of milk (unless of course we worry it is going to ruin their dinner or something, in which case we just have them drink it with dinner or right after.)  I have also started taking the kids out in the sun without sunscreen-- ahh!!  Horrible!!  Right??  When Riana was a baby, I was told, by a Doctor, that because she was a redhead, I shouldn't take her from the car to the house without covering her or putting sunscreen on her.  However, I have since learned that there is a huge epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency because of sunscreen.  It can cause all kinds of problems!!  In my research, I also learned that you should give your breastfed babies Vitamin D supplements.  Also that 15 minutes in the sun can give you like 10,000 iu's of Vitamin D or something.  So I have just been letting the girls play for short amounts, in the sun, without sunscreen.  After 15 minutes, I have them come in and take a 15 minute break and then repeat, if they want to.  

When Karina chose her hard cast, she chose her favorite color... purple!!  :)  Nobody has gotten a purple cast before.  They have mostly been hot pink and 1 glow in the dark.

Here is our count of broken bones--
10 total
Riana- 0 (maybe because I still had high levels when I was pregnant/nursing her)
Sariah- 3 (all buckle fractures of the arms)
Tierra- 3 (1 buckle fracture of the arm, 1 finger, and 1 toe)
Karina- 1 (this was her first and it was a buckle fracture of the arm)
Aurora- 1 (toddler fracture of the leg- most common fracture of toddlers)
Calyssa- 2 (both buckle fractures of the arms)

So sad!!  In my family growing up, in 7 kids, my brother Tommy was the only one who broke a major bone, an arm.  My sister broke a finger and I have since broken a couple of fingers and toes.  And in Grant's family of 6 kids (including 5 very active boys!!!), no one ever broke a bone!!  Crazy that we have 6 girls and only have 1 child who hasn't broken a major bone!!

We have a tradition (yes, very sad when you have traditions with broken bones) that the last week of having your cast, you can let people sign your cast.  But first, Mommy gets to write your name on it.  Karina's cast, like a few of our others, slid straight off, so they didn't have to cut it off, which is much better.  Karina was sad to miss out on some swimming at the pool and she also had to miss summer soccer, but she was a good sport about it all. 

She was happy to have it off, but had to be careful for a few extra weeks because it wasn't quite healed.  They had her put it back on to do any sports, except swimming.  Well, we had another close call.  She was standing up in the window downstairs (which is not allowed, by the way) and Riana didn't realize that the window was open, because Karina was between the blinds and the window.  Riana thought it would be funny to scare her, except then Karina fell out the window, through the screen, and totally started screaming!  I ran to her and she was holding her arm... only it was the opposite arm.  I thought I was going to throw up!!!  I felt SO sick!!  I called to Grant upstairs and told him that Karina had broken her other arm.  I was pacing back and forth and just felt so sick.  My neighbors probably wondered what was going on.  I was paralyzed by my fear, but Grant checked her out and lucky she had just scraped a huge chunk of skin off her arm... ouch!!!  But at least it wasn't another broken bone!!  Poor girl!!  So glad that she is now all healed... and hopefully we are done with broken bones forever more, because we have definitely had more than our fair share of them!!