A Spoonful of Sugar is the Medicine

The morning of Saturday, August the nineteenth, was not a good one for either Clara Grace or her parents. While Clara Grace’s mommy faithfully manned the family yard sale intended to make room for Clara Grace’s soon to arrive baby brother, Clara Grace and her Daddy marched around the front yard hand in hand until the little girl took a notion to run toward the road. Instinctively, Clara Grace’s Daddy squeezed tighter to his daughter’s hand. After a strong tug from the little toddler, she whimpered in surprise, “Arm hurts!” She grasped her wrist and held it straight out gingerly. This resulted in an emergency trip to the doctor who coincidentally happened to be the very same physician who had treated Clara Grace’s mommy when she was a little girl.

“Nursemaid’s elbow,” he said definitively on first sight of the poor toddler supporting her left arm straight out by the wrist.

“I think it might actually be her wrist—“ Clara Grace’s Daddy tried to protest. “I felt a little pop and she’s been holding it—”

Before he could finish though, the doctor had Clara Grace on her mommy’s lap and had begun bending the little girl’s injured arm in what could only be described as rubber-like contortions. “It’s back in place,” the doctor reported, “she should feel better in a few hours.”

The poor little girl sat uncharacteristically motionless on the couch for the rest of the afternoon and propped her arm just as before. Finally, her mommy made the hard decision to go ahead and bring her to Nicholas’s birthday party in the hopes that she would be distracted from her misery. As expected, Clara Grace cheered up on seeing all the lively children, but hung back from fully joining in their raucous play. When it came time to eat, she allowed her mommy to hand feed her yummy cheese and crackers, hotdogs, and macaroni, but still felt it necessary to prop her left arm.

The moment of miraculous healing at last occurred when Nicholas’s mommy held out a vanilla and a chocolate cup cake to Clara Grace and asked which one she preferred. All memories of pain seemed to vanish as the little girl stretched out both arms and grasped the two cakes simultaneously.

Invented-but-Accurate English

Clara Grace’s daddy heard a tiny rumble as he watched his daughter in the bathtub on the night of Tuesday, August the fifteenth. “I Tooted!” Clara Grace informed him proudly. “Yes you did,” her daddy replied. “Bubbles!” the little girl went on discovering a new bath time diversion.

The next day, a similar tiny rumble issued from the little girl while she played with her toys in the nursery. “I bubblesed!” she exclaimed.

An Announcement

Monday, August the seventh, Clara Grace surprised her mommy by announcing from her high chair “Two spoons.” And “Two yogurts.” Which happened to be precisely the cargo her mommy had just deposited on the table for their breakfast.