the ripstick incident.

Miriam is an excellent ripstick-er.  She can ride a ripstick better than most everyone I know.  They're not easy.  It's not a skateboard.  It's harder to ride than a skateboard.

Every time I decide I'm going to try ripsticking, I quickly change my mind for fear I may break my neck.

For all of you who are saying, "A rip-WHAT?"  Here's the quick run down.  It's a skateboard, except it's not.  It has a pivoting middle and castor wheels on each end.  Just getting up on the thing is impossible...let alone riding it down a hill.

All of the kids in the neighborhood were out playing in the cul-de-sac and Miriam was doing her usual tricks on her ripstick. 

She rode down the extremely steep hill of our next door neighbor's driveway.  She came speeding down and so did the ripstick. Until the ripstick hit a little tiny rock.  Then the ripstick stopped. And Miriam...didn't.

She went flying. Onto the asphalt.

She came into the house where Mike and I were.  I was chatting on the phone with a friend and I saw Miriam with her chin covered and dripping in blood.  I said, "Miriam's got blood everywhere." Which I meant to be saying to Mike.

My friend said, "Okay, I better let you go."

Not sure when I hung up.

Or if the phone was just off the hook for a while.

When we got her cleaned up we discovered that she had split her lip wide open. And that she had road rash in at least 5 places.  Including her chin.

She was complaining about her wrist kind of hurting but she could move it, move her fingers, and it wasn't swelling at all.

She went to a movie activity with her friend that evening only an hour after the entire incident.

The next day was busy and we went and did all kinds of things.  Miriam mentioned her wrist a couple of times.  We checked it and determined that she may have sprained it.  Still, no swelling.

Sunday came and went.

Monday. No school.  We were sitting at the kitchen table for breakfast.  Mike had said to Miriam, "Maybe your wrist is bothering you because you're not using it.  Maybe instead of holding it, if you use it a bit, it will feel better."

Not ten minutes later as we were all chatting around the table, Mike and I looked at each other at exactly the same second and we knew.  We said to each other, "That wrist just doesn't look right."

So we were off to the doctor.  For the rest of our day off from school, we went back and forth laughing and giggling in and out of quiet doctors' offices.

And we brought home an orange cast. For Halloween.

tough girl. LIFE.