I’ve been promising to Eli for the last week that soon his cast would be coming off. Although it didn’t seem to bother him that much, when I would ask him if he wants to get it off, he would respond with a drawn out “Yeah”. Thankfully, the doctor didn’t make a liar out of me. I’m proud to announce that Eli’s cast is finally off!

I say finally as if it’s been months and months of waiting. Really, it’s only been 4 weeks. And I couldn’t have asked for a better kid for this to happen to. Not that I wanted it to happen to him. But was really pretty easy going about the whole thing. For the first couple of weeks, he couldn’t get around very well on his own. My back can attest to that, I had to carry him everywhere. He soon developed what I like to call his gimpy crawl. His bad leg sticking out to the side, dragging behind as he hobbled across the room. You have to see it get the whole affect. About a week and a half ago, Eli figured out that he could stand on the cast, then take a tentative step. Then two. And then he was flying across the room. There was no stopping him. My back finally had a much needed break, and Eli had a little bit of independence back. I think we both breathed a sigh of relief.

The doctor’s appointment went pretty much as expected. There were some tears as the cast was being cut off. Imagine trying to comfort a 19 month when a buzzing, vibrating saw comes at him. Try as I might, he burst into tears. Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes. But the poor kiddo was so confused that he actually asked for the “cast on”. He wanted them to put it back on! Then on to the x-ray, with my now traumatized and over-tired boy (he didn’t get much of a nap this afternoon). More tears as they bent his leg this way and that for 2 “pictures”. Thankfully, Dad-oo came to the rescue. He took Eli’s nose and threw it into the garbage. And we continued to play that game until the doctor came in 20 minutes later. Everything looked great, the leg was healing wonderfully, and we were free to go. The doctor did caution us that it may take Eli some time to be comfortable with crawling, standing and finally walking. We should just give him time, and when he’s ready, he’s ready. Well, apparently he was ready as soon as we got home tonight. And he hasn’t stopped walking since.

Here are a few photos of Eli’s first night cast-free. It was a much needed bath night.

Eli's first bath without that pesky cast.

He's doing pretty well with his new leg. A little limp, but that's it.

Saturday was The Official Cast Signing Party. Dad-oo felt so bad about everything that he wanted to invite our friends over to cheer up Eli and sign his cast. Really, it was just a ploy to get me to OK inviting our friends to our tiny, tiny house, with food, booze, The Big Lebowski and whatever else they watched or did after I crawled into bed at 1:30. In. The. Morning. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve been up that late. Wait, no it hasn’t. We were up later than that most nights in Seattle. Regardless, it was a late night.

The party ended up being pretty small. Some people had VIP access and were able to sign the cast a few days early. Some people already had plans. I know. Can you believe it?!? Others were from way out of town and couldn’t make the drive over. But we did have a rowdy group drive up and pretty much take over our house. In a good way. We have a tiny 2 bedroom house, so anytime we have guests, even if it’s just one person, our house suddenly closes in around us and I find myself whispering, “Need more space. The walls are closing in.”

Anyway, back to the party. It consisted of one local friend, three out-of-town friends and one adorable 2 month old baby boy, named Steve. There was tons of food including homemade pizza (with crust from my new bread machine), more than enough beer, cast signing, presents and many, many loud voices. Including poor little Steve, who seemed a little overwhelmed, overtired, and had a hard time settling himself for sleep. But eventually he did and was terrific the rest of the night.

Thankfully no one ended up getting too crazy. By the time I found myself in up bed, everybody else was more tired than anything else. I’m not sure what all went down after that, but it must not have been too bad, everyone seemed pretty chipper the next morning.

On a side note, I forgot what it was like sleeping with Eli in the room. It’s been a while since I’ve had to share a room with him, probably at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. But because Steve’s momma is nursing him, we offered them our room. Dad-oo camped out on the couch and I took the air mattress on Eli’s floor. It’s probably more accurate to say that I slept on the air mattress for about 30 minutes. And then all of the air leaked out. And I was sleeping on the floor. Oh well, I’m not feeling bad today because of it.

AND tomorrow marks my first official day at home with Eli. I’m still planning on doing everything that I outlined last week. We’ll see if I can do it all. Without losing my sanity or collapsing when the day is over.