A Bad Day For A Fall

Yesterday was a bad day for a couple of people in our family. Both Logan and Carlos' grandmother, Marcolina, had bad falls. Logan was left with a bump on the noggin, and a bruised ego. Marcolina wasn't so lucky.

First I will tell you about Logan's fall. He has recently began climbing up on the couch by himself. No fear...no understanding of falling off furniture or the consequences of doing so. Isn't that a happy day for every parent?

He is also not yet understanding the words "no", "stop" or "be careful". In fact, the grin on his face each time I utter these words indicates that he may believe they are just playful words such as "yay!" or "woohoo" or "wow".

Back to the story. As is usual now, he scrambled onto the couch, wiggling and kicking and flailing, finally hoisting himself onto the couch. Then he proceeded to try to scale the side of the bookcase beside the couch. I knew I couldn't get to him in time, so I called his name. He turned around, wicked grin drawn across his face, and just looked at me. His mistake was standing at the edge of the couch when he turned around instead of sitting down like he usually does.

It was as if the whole thing happened in slow motion. There was no way I could have stopped it. He just toppled over, falling from his standing position on the couch and landing flat on his back on the floor. The sound of his head hitting the wood floor made me unable to move. It was shockingly loud. Then came the screams. Ear piercing screams.

It took a good few minutes to calm him down. This was his first big fall, and I think he was pretty shaken. You know it's bad when the TV doesn't calm him immediately...and it didn't...right away. But a few minutes later all was forgotten. Too much was forgotten, it appears. He was right back to his couch-climbing ways in no time, and it was obvious that no lesson was learned. But the important thing is that he wasn't injured.

I wish I could say the same for Carlos' grandmother. Marcolina lives with Carlos' parents. She had a bad fall while they were at work, and couldn't get up. Luckily we had just bough an X10 personal security gadget for her, and Carlos had installed it on Sunday.

The X10 Personal Assistance Voice Dialer

She pressed the button on the heart pendant around her neck, and the system called Carlos' cell phone. He then called his mother, who left work immediately and headed home. When she got there she found Marcolina on the floor, her arm so swollen that she couldn't get up even with my mother-in-law's help. She ended up calling 911, and an ambulance came and took them to the hospital.

I shudder to think of Marcolina lying on that cold basement floor, waiting 4 hours for someone to come home and help her (Carlos got the call from the system at 1:20pm...my mother-in-law isn't home from work until 5:30pm or later). I am so thankful that we installed and tested the system on Sunday, and that Marcolina had the presence of mind to use it. It was 25 minutes from the time Carlos got the call to when my mother-in-law got home.

Poor Marcolina, 86 years old, fractured her arm. She's got a cast and everything. As if it wasn't hard enough for her to use her walker in the close quarters of her mother-in-law suite, now she has a cast to contend with. Luckily my mother-in-law had already planned a trip for her and her mother to visit family in Boston. They leave next week. Marcolina has been cleared to fly by her doctor. She will be pampered by her other daughter (Carlos' aunt), and her grandchildren. I'm sure her brightened spirit will help her heal faster.

I asked Zander if he wanted to make his great grandmother a "Get Well Soon" card. He screamed "Yup!", and ran to the table, anxiously awaiting his box of craft supplies. He then spent the next hour carefully crafting the perfect card. I've never seen him focus like that...it was like he was on mission. Every sticker placed with precision, every stroke of the crayon specific and deliberate. He was so pleased with his creation that he was hesitant to give it to his great grandmother...so much so that he wouldn't let it leave his iron grip for 30 minutes.

He wouldn't even look up for the camera!

Wouldn't you love to be given a masterpiece like this? A Zander original!

Hopefully we won't be getting any recorded messages from the X10 system again anytime soon. And hopefully Logan will start to understand the pain of launching himself off the couch...ya...that's never going to happen!