Two visits and a whole lot of mishaps

In March, my friend Nina came for a visit.  She is my best friend from high school, a truly beautiful and amazing person.  The summer after James and I got married, she entered a religious order in Florida.  A few days before Charlie was born, she discerned out and returned to live in St. Louis where she now works as a DRE.  So, in the past four years, we have not seen each other for more than a few hours (two very random visits, but both were very short).  I can't say how excited I was when she told me she was coming to visit.  It was a great week: so much catching up, so much remembering.  Unfortunately, there were also a couple of mishaps-- our computer broke, James was studying for his second round of comprehensive exams, Lucy got very sick, then Lucy got Nina sick too.  But, I think we were so happy to be spending time with each other, that we didn't even really care.  Not even when we were driving Lucy to the pediatrician and she was puking in the backseat the whole way there while Nina patiently held a bucket for her.  Have I mentioned how awesome Nina is?

Anyway, in all of the chaos, we had one little tourist-y adventure downtown.  We walked past the cherry blossoms, and then visited the Museum of Natural History.  

This is our mutual friend Rebecca.  Now try to follow this craziness: Rebecca was roommates with our friend Fitz in college at Marquette.  Then Nina and Rebecca randomly studied abroad together in Rome.  Then Rebecca moved to DC.  The world really is a small place.  Rebecca came over and we had a girls night, which was neither wild nor crazy due to all of the sickness going around. 

The day Nina left, James took the last of his comprehensive exams and we went to a party with his classmates to celebrate.  Sadly, the celebration did not last long for us.  While rough-housing with a friend of ours Lucy hurt her arm and refused to move it.  Now, if Lucy has to get hurt, there could not have been a better place for it to happen.  In attendance at the party were two nurses (one was even a pediatric nurse), and the hospital was literally across the street.  At the ER, they took x-rays, determined that there was at least no large breaks, and decided she had nursemaid's elbow (which she had a year and a half ago, coincidentally we had the same Dr. at the ER).  After popping her elbow back in to place, Lucy was still pretty miserable and could not even hold a popsicle (although she did try, very pathetically).  She refused to move it for days, and still complained that it hurt for days after that, but after a visit to both the pediatrician and the orthopedist, we were reassured that it was just ligament damage and would heal in time.  And it did. Thank God!

Later that week, my mom came to visit.  We had a very nice, low-key visit, mostly just playing with the kids.