Our House, In the Middle of the Living Room

Because I am mean and horrible (and/or about to shit a primary-colored plastic brick if I step on one more goddamned bloody Lego), I recently banished all toys from our living room. All. All the toys. Hereby, I declare: None toys in the living room. 

Originally, in an aspirational what-family-do-I-think-lives-here frenzy, I gave board games a pass. I stacked them up neatly in a relocated buffet behind the couch, all pieces sorted and intact, a organzational masterpiece that lasted exactly 15 minutes before Ike pulled every single game out and upended them all over the floor. 

So if we WERE the kind of family that held regular Game Nights*, the only option at this point would be some bastardized unholy version of Sorry, I Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus to Your Operation While Wearing a HedBanz and Then Some Underfed Hippos Ated The Hospital and A Bunch of Hotels. But you'd have to pretend to roll the dice; we no longer have any.

*Note: We are not. We are all entirely too competitive and it always ends badly. Also, Noah cheats. I SAW YOU MOVE AN EXTRA SPACE. IT'S NOT FAIR. I WAS WINNING. JA-A-SON, STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT. 

Ahem. ANYWAY. Point is, I moved all their toys to the basement playroom and meticulously organized everything into baskets and stations by toy type and category. Trains, wooden. Transportation, other, assorted metal. Food, plastic, wood, felt. Cups, picnic-related. Cups, stacking. You get the general OCD idea. 

Which of course means my children want nothing to do with any of those downstairs toys anymore (so classist!), and this has now taken up permanent residence in the middle of my living room:

This = a house. OBVIOUSLY. Did you not notice the chimney? With the fire and everything?

(Yes, that is The Napkin. Though Noah is less entranced with it now that it's come undone a couple times and my napkin rosette-rolling skills are apparently not restaurant quality.)

I'm sure it's a surprise to absolutely no one that this is all Ezra's doing. 

It's gone through a few architectural changes (depending on pre/post-trash day cardboard box availability), and is surprisingly roomy.

I am currently under very strict orders not to "break the house." Even Noah barely got his pillow back last night. 

Which means the first order of business this morning was install a replacement door.

While Ezra was distracted with breakfast, I admit I did some snooping to see the furnishings.

Hmm.

Because every house needs 1) a dog, 2) half-a-dozen plastic milks, 3) yellow money, 4) ice tongs, 5) picnic food, 6) a wooden cucumber and 7) a Thomas train and Dinoco helicopter.

When questioned, Ezra insisted that all those toys weren't, in fact, in the living room. That's the house's KITCHEN ROOM. The other basket is the house's living room, and it's empty. No toys there, Mom.

LOGIC = FLAWLESS. Outsmarted once again, alas. 

Oh Right, My Left Foot

Lookit! I have a matching set again!

Like so many of my life stories, the One About My Foot eventually resolved itself in a boring, drama-less manner. I know many (MANY) of you were convinced that it was, in fact, broken and I'd gotten a shit diagnosis, because there's no way a human foot should look...well, like a bloated zombie appendage from an Eli Roth film.

It was not broken. It turns out I tore two ligaments, one on either side of my foot. The outer ligament tore completely, which would account for the horrid popping sound and sensation I heard as I toppled over. That was a Level 3 sprain; the valedictorian of sprains; the kind that can fuck with you for life. Huzzah! The inner ligament (which I was informed is much harder to tear, and my doctor was basically like, "HOW DAFUQ?") only tore partially. A Level 2 sprain. Which: Pfft. The other side of my foot is not impressed. Sack up, ho. 

The initial swelling and bruising that I subjected y'all to was likely made worse by the fact that 1) I continued to hobble around on my foot in Vegas, because VEGAS and it's not like you can just order up a buffet via room service, and 2) I had to fly cross-country three days later and remain mostly trapped in my seat, unable to keep my foot fully elevated OR walk the aisle to get the blood circulating, as by then I was seriously unstable and regretting my decision to skip the Good Drugs. Hence: BAM. CORPSE FOOT. 

ProTip: Try to injure yourself at home next time, jackass. 

But! The good news is that everything is healing very, very nicely. I won't need surgery, and most of my range of motion has returned. 

(The day I flexed my feet outward and then realized that both feet could finally bend the same distance was the day I Burst Into Tears About My Foot, Look Honey, LOOK, Isn't It Beautiful, Oh God, I Need A Pedicure.) 

My foot doesn't really hurt anymore; it just feels...weak. Like it's kind of a punk-ass wuss that I can't fully count on yet to be there for me when I need it. Like on a flight of a stairs, or stepping out of a car. I wore the hospital-issued ankle brace to Williamsburg to keep it safe from accidental jams and twists on old-timey sidewalks and streets, and I've been taking daily walks around the neighborhood with the stroller and wear a lighter support...thing for that. (An ankle girdle? Footie spanxx? Maybe.)

Uneven surfaces and curbs still make me vaguely panicky, and I seriously FREAK OUT at the sight of anyone on TV wearing super-high platform heels now, since I can't stop waiting for them — like me — to take just one slightly wrong step and go down like a flailing sack o' fail. It's like footwear-related PTSD. I can't even look at red carpet fashion photos without fretting over everybody's ability to make it safely to and from the restroom later, once they've had some wine and get laid out by some uneven carpet padding. 

But it is getting stronger, and jokes aside, I really AM taking it seriously and doing my therapy exercises and wearing supportive flats and all that. My Mother's Day gift was a little home foot whirlpool spa so I can continue to soak and ice it IN STYLE. And COMFORT. Like a BOSS. Like a boss who is never, ever going to live this bout of klutziness down. 

Judging. Harshly.