Tonight is one of those nights when I wish that Dan wasn’t working so late. It’s a cold, blustery night, and even though these flannel sheets and heated blanket are keeping me quite cozy, nothing would feel quite so good as having his arms around me. ♥
(You can thank Lil’ Kim for the inspiration for this blog entry title.)
I want my stamina back. Someone give me a magic stick (wand?) so I can wave it and make myself feel super perky and awesome and not all bloated and swollen and hurt-y and sluggish. Four abdominal surgeries in 26 months is rough. Two abdominal surgeries just ten weeks apart is brutal. I’m 10 days post-op today, but let me tell you, I’m not up for walking from one end of my house to the other and back again without feeling it. My belly isn’t as swollen as it was before, but even with Spanx (more for support than pretty sexy slimness at this moment) I’m still a bloated mess. I just took a Vicodin after battling soreness and twinges of pain and a severe feeling of being bruised from sternum to groin all day long. But I can see my toes again! Progress, right?
It’s 11:30pm on a Friday night, and while the rest of the mid-to-late 20-somethings of the world are doing relaxing or fun stuff offline or online, I’m eyeing my bed with more than a little longing. But I have a few work-related tasks to take care of before I go to bed, and I have some *cough*torrented*cough* downloads to rename, organize, and transfer to our media server (does anyone remember David the Gnome? I downloaded a bunch of episodes in the hopes of getting Alyssa and Ryan into it. I loved that show when I was a kid!).
Oh – there’s also hot pink hair dye in my hair. After I finally dragged myself into the shower, I forced myself to stand in front of the bathroom mirror and take five or so minutes to slather my hair with Manic Panic’s Hot Hot Pink. I accidentally used some regular (sulfate) shampoo a few times after my surgery, and turned my hot fuschia hair into pale blah cotton candy pink. Nothing against cotton candy pink, except that it does not go with my natural hair color, or my skin tone (Jenn =/= pastels). And speaking of dye, Ryan asked for green (and after doing my hair hot pink, turquoise, and purple over the past year, and then giving Alyssa hot pink streaks, who the hell am I to say no?), so my Bean is now green. Squee. It’s cute, though subtle (though it may look more vibrant in the daytime). He’s very excited to show his teachers and therapists (yes, my son is so damn special1, he has two of them – one for each class). on Monday. He’s been showing them his newest skill – buttoning and unbuttoning. I showed him how to button up an adorable flannel button-down shirt the other morning, and according to what his therapists have written in his notebook, he’s spending his school days doing his school work and unbuttoning and buttoning his shirts all day long. But on the bright side, he’s no longer chewing on his shirt sleeves, or his school papers2. He has five or six button-down shirts, but if need be I’ll get him some more. Heh.
Lately Alyssa has just been awesome. AWESOME. Of course, she’s always awesome, but lately she’s been especially awesome. And this post shall consisted of oversized bulletized blurbs of text outlining some of her awesomeness.
- She can navigate basic computer processes/programs and the interwebs on both Windows (her desktop, my netbook) and OS X (my Macbook). The other day I walked into her bedroom to find her playing Minecraft on her desktop, while watching Minecraft how-to guides (that she found on YouTube. BY HERSELF.) on my Macbook.
- She has totally inherited my tone and knack for sarcasm and witty little one-liners. Today, for example, she and Ryan were reading a book in the backseat of our car while we were driving to Red Robin. Ryan was reading out loud about a ladybug who kept questioning the same other bugs over and over about what they were. Alyssa remarked, “that ladybug doesn’t listen very well”. (In writing it doesn’t look so funny, but I swear, both Dan and I seriously cracked the hell up when she made that snarky remark.)
- Reading. Oh em gee. The girl can READ. One month ago she was on level D books. Now? J!
- She is so sweet, and so helpful, and so independent and self-sufficient… and she loves that she has all of these qualities. She embraces them. She defends them fiercely. Me? Help her? Pfft. She’d be a quadruple amputee and she’d still figure out how to make her own cream of wheat in the morning.
Oh, and to explain the blog entry title: today, Alyssa informed me that she and K, her busmate/classmate, are now stepsisters, and they’ve kissed each other. Her first boy kiss was at age 6, and now she’s had her first girl kiss at age 7. At this rate I’ll be slipping birth control pills in her cereal by the time she’s 12. (KIDDING. I’m not saying my daughter is promiscuous, and Dan and I plan to have many open-minded, open-ended conversations about safe sex and birth control options in the coming years.)
P.S. Today we talked about why smoking is bad. Gahhhhhhh. My daughter is growing up too fast! Sometimes I miss my naive, my-world-doesn’t-go-beyond-my-house little girl.
What the fuck, body? I didn’t go to bed until a little after midnight, so there is no reason why I should have woken up as early as I did, as quickly and fully as I did, when I simply had to use the bathroom (in an effort to flush out whatever drugs are left in my system from the surgery1, and make sure I’m thoroughly hydrated in anticipation of my period, which should be arriving in the next few days2, I’ve been drinking lots and lots of water). I came back to bed and laid there, wide awake, until 6:35am, when I finally said to hell with it and got up.
On the plus side, I was able to take my time getting dressed and putzing about with morning routines (letting the dog out, scooping the cat litter, feeding the fish, etc.), which is nice since post-op belly pain was also keeping me awake, and is making me sluggish and slower to move and do things. And, Ryan woke up not long after I did, and the two of us had time to not only talk about clocks and alarms (which he keeps calling “timers”), but to also read four books that he wants to take back to school to swap for new ones. Both he and Alyssa are doing AMAZING with their reading, FYI. And Alyssa? Hello computer whiz! The other day I discovered her watching Minecraft how-to guides on YouTube (that she looked up herself!) on my Macbook, while she was playing Minecraft on her desktop. ♥ that girl and her all-around awesomeness!
Right now I’m doing some work, enjoying a heated blanket in my lap, putting off taking a Percocet until I take care of at least another dozen emails (which kind of sucks in and of itself, because sitting upright like this for so long actually makes my belly hurt more, blech), and biding my time until I know the mail lady has come by, at which point I’ll drive down the road to our mailbox (don’t hate – I’m not lazy, just nine days post-op from abdominal surgery, swollen and still in some pain, and I still have that effing broken foot!), where January’s stipend check (from fostering my brother – we’re going to visit him this weekend!) will hopefully be waiting. Then I’m going to bug Dan to take me to the bank, so we can deposit it, and then call for another propane fill-up. Heating ain’t cheap3. 
