It was The Best of Swingsets. It was the Worst of Swingsets.

This Spring we splurged on a gently-used vinyl-clad

swingset from Craigslist.

It was a thing of joy.

It had forts for hunkering down...

A sweet slide...

A perfect trio of swinging toys...

And lots and lots of smiles.

We thought we had found the PERFECT toy!

And it was -

for about a month -

until our sweet, tenacious Payton

fell from the highest fort, and broke her leg!

Here's her X-ray from that same day.

She had a spiral fracture in her left femur.

We took her to our local hospital, 

and they had to transport her to the County Hospital

where they can handle trauma.

What a scary, scary night!

They checked her from head to toe,

and she only hurt her leg.

We had friends who helped out, 

ease our journey through the hospital system,

and her surgeons were very wise and handled 

our precious Payton with great care.

Dr. Early put two tiny rods through her bone,

called intramedullary rods, 

which held her leg together

as an internal splint.

She came home in a wheelchair,

and spent a few weeks wheeling around in it,

but it didn't take long for her to be out and about again...

Even suggesting we keep the doomed swingset around a little while longer...

Okay, Pay Pay, We'll keep that darned thing,

but we will require that you use it according to the rules,

and if you don't we'll have to package you up in bubble wrap 

before you go out to play.

We love you, and are grateful you healed so quickly!

As for the swingset...

I'm thinking Craigslist may be in your future at some point.

Nothing personal.

As for the metal rods...

They eventually became 

THE COOLEST SHOW & TELL EVER!