The day started off sunny and warm and the kids had a romp through the sprinkler with their friends in our yard.

But our plan this afternoon included spending some time indoors - to ice skate. Their skating friends had let us know that the Ice Arena at USM was opening today for the season and asked us join them for open skate. The kids were thrilled at the prospect of ice skating in August.

After digging out the skates, the girls of course had to find their favorite skating outfits.

But during the last 5 minutes of open skate, L. fell down - hard - on her knees. She's not a big crier when in pain (she's broken her arm 3 times and the crying didn't last more than a couple of minutes in any of those incidents - even the one that required surgery) but this fall had her in tears for longer than usual. That of course prompted me to overreact and take her to the emergency room. (And BTW, none of those broken bones were sports-related - a slip in the shower, a leap off a playground swing, a fall off a chair.)

Of course I planned ahead for a long wait at the ER with a quick stop to the library on our way into Portland. L. agreed it was worth the 5-minute stop for a couple of books to pass the time once we got there.

It turned out that nothing was broken but she'll be in some pain for a while and have a nasty purple bruise.

After leaving the emergency room I called Fino to let him know about L.'s accident at the rink. Before I could tell him exactly what had happened, he interrupted to ask apprehensively. "Oh no, did she break her arm again?"

I had thought the same thing when I had first seen her crying on the ice. And crazy as this sounds, I was happy to report it was only a couple of badly bruised knees. Those broken arms for L. were almost as traumatic for her parents as they were for her.

So L. is staying off the ice for at least a week - a real hardship during sunny August - and now vying for a better pair of ice skates.

"My skate boots are too wobbly mom. I need those hard boots like Katie has so I don't fall like that again."

Whatever it takes for some no-broken-bone insurance, I'll take it. E-bay here I come...