Greetings to everyone.

Fall is a wonderful time of the year, September being the best of the Autumn months. The air crisps at night. The scents in the air wax with the musk of the drying leaves covering the ground. The morning and evening light warms you with comfort. And, if you are lucky enough to be home when it happens, the furnace kicks in for the first time, and you can enjoy the smell of warming ducts throughout the house.

This year, Colorado enjoyed a long September, one which spilled over an entire month to nearly the end of October. The past week saw a significant cool down and rain, but sunny, mid-60s days warmed the weekend.

I love the fall, but there comes a point when the leaves littering the ground have to go; I can't stand having them on the lawn during the Winter and Spring months. After dining on an ordered-in pizza on the patio (pepperoni and sausage, but all I got was the sausage—Xavier picked all the pepperoni off and ate it, leaving sausage and cheese behind), Xavier and I paid a visit to the tool shed.

I know my son. He likes to help. So I pulled out a smaller rake for him, a larger rake and a coal shovel for me. We grabbed some 39-gallon trash bags, a trash can and headed for the lawn. It did not take Xavier long to figure out how to work the rake: he watched Dad do it a few times, then he dragged his rake behind him through the litter of leaves.

He helped pull leaves into piles for a while. Then, the idea struck him: A pile of leaves, a sunny, Indian-summer day (perhaps the last of the year) and a two-year old boy: it just added up. He waded into the pile, sat down, then pulled the pile close around him.

Then the playing began. He gathered armfuls of leaves and threw them to the wind. There was little to no wind today, but that did not matter. He spent a good quarter hour in his pile, ignoring Dad who worked at cramming the pile into trash bags.

Eventually, Xavier thought the loading up of the trash bags might be as entertaining as thrashing in the leaf pile. He stood up and gathered another armful of leaves. Wading out of the pile, he headed for the trash can.

The piles quickly went from ground to trash bag, but on the fourth bag, Xavier must have decided Dad was not moving fast enough at getting the liner into the trash can. He figured any container would work. He found a large, nearly empty flower pot to use. While Dad fiddled about with the last liner, Xavier forged ahead. "We're burning daylight," he might have been thinking.

Before turning in for a well-deserved nap, Xavier posed with our daily legal limit of leaves.

Greetings to everyone.

Last night Xavier did not want to go down for bed. It was a good forty-five minutes past his time for bed, and still he was too amped to sleep. Rebecca blames the whole chocolate chip cookie he ate at our 7:30 dinner.

We got him changed, his teeth brushed, and him clothed in one of his new (24-month sized Glory to God!) sleepers, then Rebecca handed him his bottle and sat to read him a story.

He did not want his bottle. He did not want to read a story. He did not want to cuddle. He wanted down. He wanted to run. He wanted to strew Hot Wheels track all over Middle Earth.

His choice, however, had been made for him: the crib.

He fussed and squawked, and fussed some more. Every so often he would go quiet for a lengthy stretch. Just when you thought "Finally, he's asleep" he'd start fussing and squawking all over again. This went on for thirty minutes or so, then a long silence.

It was the silence. Rebecca sensed it and so did I. It was not the silence of Xavier falling to sleep. Something was amiss. Before we realized we were thinking this, a tremendous thud rattled the ceiling above us!

We had no idea what it was. Thoughts of Xavier throwing a picture from the wall and him throwing his electronic aquarium to the floor rushed through my mind as I took to my feet. As I ran up the stairs, the sound of silence once more filling the house, the thought flashed through my mind that someone had broken into the house and snatched Xavier.

I raced harder up the stairs, looking for any sign or sound of another in the house. My countenance grew darker with each group of stairs I bounded up. If there was an uninvited person in the house, they were not going to have a good night.

As I hit the top of the stairs and checked the front door lock while turning to sprint down the hall, I knew what had happened. Rebecca was right behind me; I have no idea what was going through her mind. However, by the top of the stairs, if not sooner, she knew what I knew.

Xavier had thrown himself out of the crib.

He did not want to be in his crib, and he decided to take matters into his own hands. He climbed the three and a half foot side railing like a champ. Reaching the rail, he was not able to keep his hold. Likely top-heavy and unbalanced, he fell to the floor.

When I reached him, he lay on his right side in silence. He held his left wrist and was not moving. As I picked him up, the wind that was knocked out of him returned. And with it, squeals and scared cries.

Rebecca and I checked him over while he carried on inconsolably. Nothing stood out. After ten minutes, Xavier was not calming; he continued holding his left arm. I recognized the discomfort. My first one of these felt the same way; though I was nine, I still remember it well.

We carefully pulled his sleeper from his arms. His left arm above his wrist was just slightly red, and just slightly swollen. We wrapped him in a blanket, loaded him into the Family Truckster and headed for Swedish.

The sign outside read a 9 minute wait. However, a nurse was outside as we arrived and she brought us right in; no waiting. The standard numbers of height and weight were taken, as were temperature and O₂ levels. Then an X-Ray machine was wheeled in.

Three pictures where taken. The films showed what we already knew: a broken arm. A buckle fracture in his left radius.

It took some time, but the nurses (four nurses attended Xavier and the doctor) figured out how to do a splint for Xavier. The problem was that none of the nurses had ever made a splint so small. They had concerns the supplies they had on hand would not work well.

In the end, after several measurements of his arm were taken, Xavier had a fiberglass splint applied. It brought with it and immediate release of much of his discomfort, the discomfort his dose of Ibuprofen did not manage.

From the time we brought him in, the nurses were amazed at how he knew to hold his arm correctly to keep it immobilized. Several commented on how smart Xavier was and at how well he handled the situation (they did not see him before the car ride quieted him). As we waited for the X-Rays to be analyzed, one of the nurses regaled us with tales of her own sons' antics, assuring us this event in Xavier's life was just plain boy.

We got him home then found a shirt he could sleep in that had a sleeve which would fit over the bulky club of bandage holding the splint in place. Once home, Xavier was feeling better, and had no interest in sleeping. It was after midnight, and none of us were ready for bed just yet.

We watched a little TV, and soon, one by one, sleep came over us all. Once Xavier started collecting blankets and curling up on the couch, it was time to make it official. Xavier slept with Mom and Dad where we could test his swelling from time to time and watch that the wrappings on his arm did not restrict his circulation.

Because there was little swelling and the night and morning passed without increased swelling, we took Xavier to see Dr. Abbey and to have a proper short arm fiberglass cast applied. Xavier was offered several colors to choose from, and he picked purple. Dad got to assist with wrapping the cast.

After that, Xavier got a flu shot. Hey, we were there anyway, right. To Xavier, that was adding injury to insult. The insult being he has not yet gotten used to his left arm having such weight on it and being so immobile.

The bone will heal quickly, in about four weeks. In most parts of the world, they would not even use a cast, but in the US, we have that option. So, over the next few weeks, Xavier will have to learn how to play Hot Wheels with only one hand (he's figured most of that out already), learn how to go down stairs with only one hand and crawl up on a couch or his seat at the table without the full use of his left arm.

Did any of this teach him not to crawl out of his crib? We think not.

Greetings to everyone.

On Monday, we became a three car family. Xavier's skills with driving Hot Wheels has grown so tremendously, we decided to get him his own big-boy car to drive around.

This baby's got power windows, power brakes, power steering, power seats. It's got steering wheel tracking headlights, integrated phone, AM/FM stereo with CD player and USB port. It's got heated leather seats, a collapsible third row of seating, front to back climate control. It's got rear-assist parking, BLIS, computer-controlled gyroscopes to help prevent tipping. Everything a growing boy needs in a family truckster.

We've been discussing the need to replace and/or upgrade one of our cars, especially since Xavier is growing long and he needs leg room! He no longer can sit in a rear-facing seat; we turned his seats around a few weeks back. We wanted to have some grow room in the vehicle for family outings, trucking several kiddos (friends of Xavier, not siblings!), hauling sports equipment and lumber and camping tents.

We were massaging the finances to get into a place to afford a car in late February 2016. Something of a necessity given next year's expected docket of travel. We had a plan in motion, but several detail eluded us.

Then, Rebecca crunched some numbers and found a way to make a cash purchase sooner than later (she's become a Dave Ramsey addict). Still thinking of a January or February time frame, she called the dealership and asked about lease returns. As it happened, one had just come in an hour or so before her call. It needed to be cleaned, inspected, etc., so we waited a few days for it to "hit the lot." 2014 XC90s are a rare breed and in both short supply and high demand; Volvo did not produce any 2015's (factory shut down to retool to make hybrid XC90s).

We both took it on test drives, kicked the tires, asked the questions. Did some wheeling and dealing. Xavier explored the inside and got used to how the controls felt and what they controlled. After that, the three of us headed for a nearby pizza place to discuss the machine over a thin-crust pie. It looked like everything we needed, and a fair asking price, plus it was almost dropped in our laps.

After some back and forth with the dealer, we signed over a check and picked it up on Monday. So far, Xavier is quite satisfied with the purchase.