We hit another milestone this week: E became the first member of the family to end up with a broken bone severe enough to require casting.

She isn’t the first one to break a bone.

G has that distinguished honor.

As an infant, he managed to acquire a dislocation and a broken bone within weeks of each other. First, he had an unfortunate occurrence where he fell off the bed and put the tiniest crack in his femur. It was so tiny that it took a few days to completely develop on the X-ray and by the time they decided that yes, there really was a fracture there, he had already adapted so well to crawling on three limbs instead of four, that they decided there was no point to casting him.

A few weeks later, he and his Big Brother were playing with one of the giant boxes that a Christmas present had come in, and somehow, he ended up stuck inside the box.

His helpful Big Brother (who surely had no hand in getting him into the box) grabbed both arms and pulled as hard as he could to try to get him out of the box. This resulted in the sadly named “nurse maid’s elbow dislocation,” and sent us to the emergency room yet again with a screaming toddler who lacked communication skills, but was clearly in a lot of pain.

While part of us knew that we had two boys, 18 months apart, who were as rough and tumble as could be, and the ER was probably going to be a mainstay in their childhoods, we were also worried about how many times we could end up there before people started asking questions.

These fears were finally put to rest a few months later, at A’s annual cardiac checkup when the doctor complimented him on his skinned and scarred knees and random black and blue marks. “It means that he’s out there running and jumping and climbing and doing all the things that boys his age should be doing,” he said, quite alarmed when I burst into tears.

I’ve tried to remember those words as the kids have accumulated various lumps and bumps and bruises over the years. You don’t get those injuries when you’re safe and sound on the couch playing video games. So, the other night, when E came home from an evening of track practice, drama rehearsal, and dance class, and mentioned that her arm was sore, I said, “well that’s good, it means you’re stretching and moving muscles that were getting lazy.” The next day, when she mentioned that it was still hurting, I finally asked her if she’d done anything to it, and she couldn’t remember any specific injury. Once again, I shrugged it off and told her to put some ice on it if it was bothering her.

Over the next few days, I noticed that the ice bag stayed on the elbow, but she didn’t really mention it again, so I thought everything would be fine. Then, we had our final swim meet of the season. It was one last chance to better her times for the championship meet in a few weeks, and she was in a very good head-space to swim the night before the meet. The next day, when she hit the water, it was a different story. Quite honestly, I hadn’t seen her swim that poorly since her first meet back in the water after missing a year and a half of practice following the pandemic shut down. As I had coaching and officiating responsibilities, I couldn’t go talk to her during the meet, but I could see on her face she was upset and disappointed.

Always conscious of walking the fine line between parent and coach, and knowing she was already beating herself up for a poor performance, I didn’t bring it up until the next morning. Her only response was that her arm still hurt. I started to suspect something a little more serious was going on, but she was eager to help start a long overdue attic clean out project and once again, I didn’t think anything more about it.

Later that evening, when we were standing in the kitchen, talking about something, I happened to notice that her elbow was noticeably swollen. It finally dawned on me that this was probably something more than just a regular old lump or bump. Sure enough, the next day, an urgent care X-ray revealed a fracture in her elbow.

Lamenting about my parenting fail on Facebook netted me a slew of other stories from moms who had also taken their kids’ injuries lightly, and regretted it later. Apparently, this is a thing we as moms tend to do. When I had my own broken arm as a child, (I can clearly recall the snap as I hit the ground) my mother insisted that I finish my breakfast and then if it still hurt, she’d take me to the hospital.

Of course, I can’t help but think that Steve would have known something was wrong right away. I know without a doubt she would have gone to him immediately for comfort, whereas I was informed she didn’t want to make me mad by telling me she was hurt. That was a real gut punch.

I definitely don’t have the best bedside manner. Too many years of coaching with mantras like “no pain, no gain” and “suck it up, buttercup” are hardwired into me. This came in very handy when I had to get my 2-year-old up and out of bed and walking after his open-heart surgery. Steve left the room for that one. As always, I’m struggling to find the balance here, that would have been so easy between the two of us.

In the meantime, I’m trying to use this time with E to show her that I can be trusted to show sympathy and offer comfort. Helping her comb her hair and get dressed reminds of both when she was little and regularly needed my help. I’ve dragged the boys into helping with her “heavy lifting” chores for a few weeks, and for once, they’re not grumbling about it. It may be a bad break for E, but it might just be a break our restructured family needed to help cement our new dynamic.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing columnist who appears weekly in the Times News.