Here’s a pic of PJ I took a couple weeks ago–he’s hanging on monkey bars–how appropriate. I’ll post a pic of him with his cast when we get the permanent one on. Each of the siblings is lobbying for a different color! We’ll see.)

Yesterday on the way to school we read the kids’ version of the devotional Jesus Calling. It was about troubles. “You’ll have them,” the devotional reminded us (I’m paraphrasing). “I promise you will, but I also promise you I will use them, and I will go through them with you. I will even enable you to smile in the face of trouble.”

At noon, when I picked up PJ, holding his left wrist carefully away from his body, to take him to get his arm x-rayed, I asked him, “Do you remember the devotional from the morning?” He didn’t, so I read it to him again.

“Wow,” he said. “God was right. Trouble did come!”

Yesterday’s “trouble” came when PJ, upside down on the monkey bars at school, slipped as he was trying to pull himself upright. He broke his fall with his left arm (his dominant arm). X-rays revealed that the wrist is broken (a “buckle” break on the ulna) but the elbow is fine.

He was a trooper during the entire process of check-in, x-rays, the fitting of the temporary cast. It helped that he got to watch The Lorax, which he loves, and that the aide gave him an orange popsicle when he was done (which he promptly dripped onto his cast!).

When I walked into his classroom this morning to talk with his wonderful teacher about what he’s not allowed to do right now (definitely no more monkey bars for awhile), she apologized. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine,” I told her. “We’re surprised it’s taken him this long to break a bone!”

And actually, as long as the Ibuprofen is pumping through his little body, PJ’s even smiling!

And here’s one of my crazy boy with a dirt clod he found at a soccer game last week.