Two years back, Natalia and Jeremy had surgery within one week of each other and I vowed at that time, never again. As in, never again are two Lacows allowed to have surgery within a short time period. In true Lacow form, we broke that rule.
You see, Jeremy and I are living out our geriatric dream of having busted up joints in young 30 something bodies. I have a jacked knee, which I had some arthroscopic surgery done on my birthday (of all days), followed two weeks later by Jeremy having hardware removed from his foot. Yep, we are a sexy crew. Let me painfully elaborate.
My knee was keeping me from doing two things dear to my heart - Jillian Micheal's Ripped in 30 and wearing high heels. Not to mention walking on the sand once a year was painful. Something obviously had to be done, right?! So it was off to the orthopedist after me whining about this bum knee for five years. It just so happened the available date for The Knee God Surgeon was on my birthday. Oh, did I mention Jeremy had planned a surprise birthday party for me that day? Well, it was a surprise until he freaked out about the planning and had me start planning it myself. Any who, I had heard that getting a knee "cleaned out" was no big deal and that after 3 days people were back to work, normal, happy, cured, whatever. Yeah, I think you know where I am going with this.
The day of my surgery (ie my birthday) was also Natalia's first day of school. At a new school. With a new bus route. With new friends. This is bigger than surgery in my book, so I drove myself to the hospital and had Jeremy stay with Natalia to see her to the bus and rally her for the first day. My plan was to steal one of my night shift friends away from the ER at 6am to do some pre-surgical hand holding. Of course this is the morning that a couple of people decide to shoot each other and someone else was intubated in another room. Needless to say, no friendly nurses to spare, so I made the walk of shame to pre-op on my own. Jeremy showed up sometime while I was in surgery and was there when I awakened..... with a non-rebreather mask on and covered in hives from the antibiotic they gave me. Oops. Nothing a little Decadron and oxygen couldn't handle.
Since I was convinced this surgery was cake and Jeremy is not used to party planning, I helped clean the house a couple hours after I got home from surgery. Hey! It was just a knee thing. We had our little party gathering (costumes and all), but by 10:30 I let everyone know that I was down for the count. Holy cow I was sore. Not to mention I stayed sore and not for just 3 damn days. Ohhh, no, no, no. When I went in for my post-op appointment I found out why. Evidently my cartilage in my knee was a bit more complicated than just a "touch up". I spent two weeks on my tush - pouting. No, I should not have been cleaning the house or vacuuming the same day as my surgery.
On a good note, at least Natalia is back in school, so I am not feeling totally guilty for being a couch potato these last two weeks. I have to say that her new teacher is awesome. Homework is so organized that Natalia can actually do it by herself without me having to spoon feed assignments to her. Amazing, right?! Okay, so let me recap some mommy daughter stuff since I haven't blogged in a while and my last blog was all "sad clown face" stuff:
The day before my surgery we hit the fair. We wised up this year and got the "ride until you puke" bracelets. Jeremy shouldn't have bothered because he evidently does not like to puke. I only came close to vomiting once on the Viper, but I had just had a beer. Classic. Natalia peer pressured me into going on the upside down rides which were totally fun. It's not that I don't like going upside down, or that it makes me sick. Let me just tell you that I have taken care of these carny folk a time or two and I totally don't trust the craftsmanship of rides put together by a man with a positive drug screen and a blood alcohol level of 0.25. We obviously lived to tell the tale. Can I tell you something else? I milked a cow. That's right! Yes, yes. Natalia milked her too, but I milked a cow. I don't know why I'm so impressed since I produced my own milk for half a year, but at the time it was the coolest thing ever. Natalia totally squirted the woman manning the "cow milking station" in the face. I thought it was funny. Hey, we got stickers and everything. Got milk?
Natalia has adjusted to her new school super well. Just so you know, the back of the bus is still THE coveted place to sit. Yep, that's where the cool kids want to hang and if you happen to go to Christine Donnell, then you get first dibs because Silver Sage kids get picked up second. It's kind of a big deal. Also, Porter has looked at Natalia AND asked to borrow her pencil eraser. She is expecting him to kiss her on the cheek next, but I let her know that boys that age really don't roll like that. I told her he is more likely to punch her in the arm. She was kind of disappointed, but said she would keep hoping. I tried to explain to her that boys that age just don't think about girls in that romantic kind of way at all. She just looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. I thought it best to change the subject.
There is still an ongoing fascination with squirrels on the playground. Again, these are the animal varietal, not the strange human kind. I clarified. At her new school they no longer make "habitats", instead the girls gather nuts and acorns during recess, leave it in a pile where they think the squirrels may frequent, then recheck these areas during the next recess to see how much squirrel activity is going on. Natalia is very serious when she talks about this squirrel research. I asked why she cares so much and she looked at me with this distasteful and incredulous look and stated "They need food for the winter mom!" Um, okay. Sorry, but squirrels are rats with fluffy tails and are disgusting. We shall agree to disagree on the squirrel quarrel.
Lastly (for reals), it is amazing how independent Natalia has become over the summer. She scooters two blocks to her friends house and shows up later, usually after dinner. Then she'll head out again across the street until just before bed. The truth is, she would rather play with her friends than just hang out at home with Jeremy and I. No, I'm not obtuse, but up until this summer, she would have a couple play dates, but would mostly hang with Jer and I. Not so much anymore. She apologizes for it a bit because she says she misses us. Awe. Isn't she so cute you want to eat her up? I tell her that she's supposed to want to ditch us for her friends and that we'll always be here. I love having kids running in and out of our house, the phone calls back and forth, the impromptu sleep overs and friends over for dinner. Love it! It makes our house a home. I love the controlled chaos of children and pets and family. We have another Disneyland trip coming up the first week of December. Every vacation is super special with the three of us, but Jeremy and I were talking about how much we are really going to appreciate this one. We know that Natalia loves her friends time, but we are going to covet our time with her as our little Lacow trio where we get her all to ourselves. No friends, no boys, no squirrels. Just us, churros, Disney and "rides till you puke".
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