The Five Broken Bones Of The Haggerty Children In Increasing Order Of Severity

#5) Least severe, most recent: Chelsea Haggerty. Chelsea currently has a stress fracture of her femur that has been giving her a hell of a time. There is really nothing that can be done other than encourage rest and relaxation and bar her from playing soccer and basketball, which is probably how she got her fracture in the first place. Pretty tame stuff.

#4) Me. Four Thanksgivings ago...well I guess this one past, so five Thanksgivings ago. Thanksgiving 2001. Anyway. Every Thanksgiving my father's college friends get together and play a football game and bring their children to play with them. It's only two-hand touch, but it's still a pretty hard-fought game. As a result, while making a "tackle" I tried to tag someone and caught my thumb on their sweatshirt, bending it back. It hurt, but not too bad. Then I did the same exact thing later, hyperextending my thumb again. It hurt all Thanksgiving and for the next two months until I finally went to the hospital, where I was told that a tiny little bone in my left wrist was split in two. I'm stupid.

#3) Me. Summer 1994 I dove for a ball in the outfield. I tumbled to grab it, heard a loud SNAP, got up, picked up the ball, threw it back into the infield and screamed "I THINK I BROKE MY COLLARBONE." I had. Everyone insists that I made the catch, but they just feel bad. I missed.

#2) Me. Easter break, 1990. Whilst frolicking on the monkey bars at Battery Park, I happened upon a good friend of mine, Charlie. Wanting to impress Charlie with my monkey bar prowess, I leapt for the third rung out instead of the more conventional second rung or the more intended first rung. Unfortunately I was an incredibly short kid and missed completely, landing on my wrist. It hurt, but not until I saw the question-mark shaped limb at the end of my body did I understand how much it actually hurt.

#1) Patrick, last summer. Pat arrived at his summer league basketball game and was told that the other team didn't have enough people. But they would be playing a scrimmage anyway, giving the other team a player to even up the sides. Ironically enough, it was this loaned player who went up for the same rebound that Patrick went for and whose foot provided the awkward landing point for Patrick's foot as he came down, rolling it over and snapping it like a twig. Two surgeries, two pieces of implanted metal, some crutches and a cane later, Patrick is back in full force.

Conclusions: Ian and Tristan are made of some kind of cushiony substance and I am a brittle, stupid clutz.