Birthday the Fourth

[Fair warning: This is probably going to be a wordy one. Feel free to just scroll through the pictures and move on.]

Anda started her birthday this year as we all do.

She ate her pink pancakes with sprinkles.

Then she put on her witch dress from Halloween two years ago and watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

Her only requests for her birthday were a very specific cake (a Princess Aurora dress cake with candles that spell out "Happy Birthday") and some balloons. Easy peasy.

I thought I might try to make that cake, but since we moved into our new house on Monday and the birthday was on Wednesday, and the kitchen still looked like this on Tuesday:

...my mom ended up saving the day by ordering the cake at a Walmart nearby instead. 

We picked up the balloons at Walmart too, and I feel it worth noting that their balloon-buying procedure is as follows: Ask Customer Service if they do helium balloons; find out they do, but you need to purchase the balloons at the party section first; find out that they mean you need to buy a whole pack of balloons at the party section; go through checkout and purchase balloons (and ice cream, etc.); go back to the produce/bakery section and wait 20 minutes for someone to appear who can fill up six balloons for you; wait another 10 minutes for that person to tell you that actually, their shift just ended, so this other person will be filling up the balloons; wait another 15 minutes for that person to clock in at the other end of the store, which is located in Narnia; wait another 10 minutes for that person to chat it up with Mr. Tumnus or somebody as they mosey back to the produce section; wait another 10 minutes for them to actually fill the balloons; get told that you will now need to go through checkout again to pay $0.75 for the helium in each balloon; survey the four open check stands, each with twelve people in line, each with a full cart of groceries and their checkbooks in hand; screw that and walk out the door, after exchanging the ice cream soup for a fresh one. 

In total, about an hour and a half to fill up six balloons and get some ice cream. Not bad!

I then "ran" into Sam's Club (while my parents waited in the car with the kids) to pick up some cupcakes for later that night, where I had to wait another 20 minutes because they had to renew my membership which I had opened four days earlier, and which had mysteriously expired already. 

Ugh, could this day get any worse?! Amiright?

Fortunately, next on the docket was our first visit to the local zoo, which turned out to be awesome. It's not so big that it's exhausting, but it has all the animal highlights you'd expect: Lions, penguins, giraffes, etc. We had a great time!

There were plenty of animal statue photo ops. 

And Anda even got to hold a bird.

The zoo closes at 5:00, so we had to go without Dan, but this meant that we would be back in plenty of time to do pizza, cake, ice cream, and presents before bed. Someone's gotta earn that money, and also provide health insurance, which just happened to begin covering us (after Dan's first 30 days of employment) on Anda's birthday. What a mundane and not at all foreboding coincidence!

Toward the end of our visit, we decided to visit the Aquarium real quick before riding the little train and calling it a day. Lilah had finally started walking a little, so I let her get down and watched her closely. 

At one point, I glanced up and saw that Anda was climbing on one of the railings at the top of the step-seating in front of the big tank, so like every other doting, vigilant, conscientious mom in the world, I told her to "be careful," then went back to not paying any attention, certain that she would be heed my words.

As soon as my head was turned, I heard, "Ah...ah...AHHHHH!!!!" as she tumbled over the railing and down a couple of carpeted steps. I made sure my parents were running over to where I left Lilah, then sprinted to the crumpled, sobbing heap that was Anda.

Anda has a tendency to be dramatic about injuries, and milk the crying much longer than is actually necessary, so I sat and tried to soothe her for a minute. The screams didn't subside, so I picked her up and rushed her outside, where we sat down on a bench. She kept up the hysterics, but kept insisting that nothing hurt--it had just scared her when she fell. Honestly, it wasn't that far of a fall, so at first I took her at her word.

However, even Anda usually gets tired of screaming and wants to move on with her day, so after 10 minutes of relentless wailing and refusal to get down or even readjust so I could check her out, I got a little concerned. I let my mom take her and walk around a little to try to get her calm, and so that I could maybe get a look at her. Nothing changed.

Eventually we got her to sit in Lilah's stroller with the promise that we'd take her to the train. She was very eager to go to the train, but still screaming ferociously as we walked in that direction. Now that she was sitting in the stroller, I could see that she wasn't moving her right arm at all, so I called Dan and told him to look up an in-network urgent care facility, and told my parents we were changing direction and taking her to a doctor NOW.

As we turned around, she kept screaming, "I'll stop crying! I want to go on the train! I'll stop! I'll stop!" It broke my heart. We reassured her that we weren't leaving because we wanted her to stop crying--we were leaving because she was hurt and needed help, but we could come back and ride the train later.

We gingerly put her in the car and took off for the address Dan had texted to me. She screamed in agony the whole way, particularly when we went over even the tiniest bump. "I don't want no bumps..." she would wail. And once, "I don't want cake. I don't want it." Did I say my heart was broken before? No--that was what did it. All she had wanted for her whole birthday was cake and now she just wanted everything to go away.

Dan met us at urgent care, where we were rushed back for an X-ray, while my parents took Lilah home. I had Dan take her to the X-ray room because by this time I was quietly sobbing uncontrollably every time I had to write the date on a form, which wouldn't have helped her at all. They immediately sent us over to the ER, which was 25 minutes back the way we had just come--right by the zoo.

I held Anda very still in the front seat this time, and she calmed down enough that she could talk a little about all the fun things we had done that day. Once we got her laid out very still on the hospital bed with some ice, she finally calmed down completely. She even got some birthday balloons.

She insisted the whole time that nothing hurt, it had just scared her. For over an hour and a half of hysterical screaming, she insisted on this. I don't know if she was in shock or what, but to wrap the story up, this is what had happened:

After about six hours in the hospital (five of which were just us sitting around and waiting for someone to show up), her bone was back where it was supposed to be, she was a little loopy from the sedation, and we were headed home. 

The rest of the festivities waited until the following evening, and Anda was a great sport doing everything left-handed. 

Although I have to admit, I hadn't anticipated the kaleidoscope being kind of a sad present when I was at the store buying it. 

When I hesitantly asked the next week if she wanted to go back to the zoo, she was thrilled. The first thing she said was that she wanted to go back so that I could "show [her] the place where it happened." The second thing she said was that she wanted to ride the train.

We did both.

Other than being itchy for the first couple of days, she never once complained about having a bulky cast or having to do everything one-handed. She even drew thank-you cards for birthday presents with her left hand and ate corn on the cob without batting an eye. 

She is now in just a brace and doing great. 

Happy birthday, Anda Chicken. Let's do it a little differently next year.