Audra

   Last night, a few minutes before church started, I was coming out the bathroom when I heard a scream from outside, and behind the door.  I quickly looked back there and saw Audra with her fingers stuck in the crack on the hinge side.  As I opened the bathroom door, it had crushed her tiny fingers and didn't let up until I closed it behind me.  One look at her ring finger and I knew it was broken!  A sharp piece of white was poking through the skin of her finger halfway between the first knuckle and the end.  Her tiny finger had that sickening, abnormal dented look on both sides of it.  I grabbed up my diaper bag, Wesley, and Audra and drove to the hospital.  A friend from church also rode with me, which was a huge blessing seeing as how she took care of Wesley while I was with Audra.  The doctor took one look at her finger and said it looked like it was crushed, and ordered and X-ray.  Audra did SO well.  She'd quit crying but was still holding her little hands together as drove to the hospital, babying her finger.  She insisted on walking instead of being carried down the halls, and marched along beside me with her head held high, saying hi to all the nurses as she passed, and didn't even flinch as the giant X-ray machine loomed over her tiny hand.  She quickly won the hearts of every one of the nurses!  :)  One nurse said that she's never had a two yr old behave so well!  I was so proud of her!  (Now, if I can only figure out why she was so brave with a broken finger, but acts like the sky is falling when her brother bumps her???)   The X-ray showed that her finger was indeed fractured, but the bones had not separated.  The hard piece of white fragment was actually her finger nail protruding through the skin.  I didn't realize the nail was hard that deep into the skin.  I guess you learn something new every day.  :)  Since there were no bone splinters and the break was clean, there was nothing the doctor could do for her.  Audra sure is babying that finger though.  This morning it was swollen and purple, but she's playing like normal.  Every now and then I hear her howl in pain as her finger gets bumped in some way or another.  But life goes on.  :)  She may lose the nail, but I hope it won't be a permanent loss.

The picture doesn't really do her finger justice.  The underneath side is pretty swollen.

   As for Wesley, the dermatologist is referring him to see an allergist at the children's hospital in Indianapolis.  The allergists there are supposed to be really, really good, so hopefully we'll know something definite about his allergy within the next couple weeks.  I've spent the morning on the phone trying to get him an appointment.

   It looks like we could close on our house in the next two or three weeks.  I'm so excited!!!  We still have to get the test results for the septic inspection, but so far everything else has passed.  I'm now faced with the massive job of getting our home packed up and ready to move!  Where do you start???  As usual, I plan on "thinning down" on our belongings before the move.  I am determined that nothing extra is going to pass the threshold of our new home!!!  
 
   We have some good missionary friends who've been through our home many times, the Cleghorn family.  Though most of their children are much older than mine, Christian admires them immensely!  The Cleghorns could be classified as his heroes.  You can't go wrong having missionaries be your kids heroes!  The other day Christian was looking through a book and saw a picture of a Texas Longhorn .  He ran to me and asked, "Mama, is that a Cleghorn?"  :)