Dinner Guest #44 - The J. Family


Sunday, November 11, 2011

Last February on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the local playground, I decided to teach Kate one of my childhood gymnastic maneuvers:

SKIN THE CAT

I hung from a metal bar with straight arms, brought both legs up and through into an inverted position and dropped to the ground.  It wasn’t a pretty, Olympic performance, but not bad for an old Momma.  Kate quickly mimicked my movements, but dropped unexpectedly onto her wrists and cried out,

“I’m in pain!”

Just by the way Kate was holding her wrist, I knew this was no ordinary bump or bruise.  Several waiting-room hours later, we left the Urgent Care office with x-ray films and a big white puffy splint wrapped around Kate’s wrist and forearm.  Unfortunately, the physician and radiologist could not agree whether Kate had broken a bone or not.

Lucky for us, we consulted our friend, neighbor, and hand surgeon:  Dr. J.  Not only did he recognize  the crumbled wrist bone on Kate’s x-ray, the following week, Dr. J. treated us like royalty in his office.  Kate loved her pink cast and still keeps the smelly, signed carcass in her bedroom drawer.

This Sunday we had Dr. J., his wife Mrs. J., and their three beautiful children to dinner.  I served garlic chicken pasta, sweet potato casserole, green beans, parmesan rolls, and grapes.  Ryan deserves the IRON CHEF award for the three days he spent making homemade ice cream for dessert.    He made two flavors:  chocolate peanut butter cup and vanilla Heath Bar swirl.  During the final countdown of ice cream churning, we weren’t sure if the pesky batter was going to freeze sufficiently, so I threw together a batch of lemon bars as a back-up. 

During dinner, Dr. J. and Ryan talked about nerdy, non-fiction books on economics while the kids secretly played with their food at the card table next to us.  My favorite point of the evening was discovering Jack, Rock, and the J. Family’s oldest son crouching behind Jack’s bed with swords in hand as they hid from the girls.

It’s hard to appropriately thank a doctor for healing one of your child’s bones.  When the cast came off, Kate made Dr. J. a card and delivered some goodies to his office.   For our family’s first broken bone, it was a relatively smooth and easy experience.  However, we hope, for our bones’ sakes, we only have to see Dr. J. again for good times OUTSIDE the office.


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