Today's events in a check list

✔  Attend Kindergarten orientation

✔  Be offended when the principles answer to the question "My child has a severe peanut allergy, how would that be handled here?" is to throw her hands in the air and say, "we will handle it well" followed by a chuckle as if she had started her career as a stand up comedian. 

✔Hear the wanna be comedian principle say, "Mrs Studach, can you stay and talk to peanut allergy over here." Once again offended. 

✔Cry and nearly hyperventilate as soon as I sat down with the school nurse over the fear that I might have to homeschool Talan. 

✔Have an hour long conversation with the awesome school nurse about all of my concerns and came up with a great allergy plan that I will run by the doctor so he can check for holes. 

✔Learn that nurses are not just fancy robotic bandaid dispensers.

✔Realize it is a bit sad when Talan doesn't start Kindergarten for 7 months, yet I am on speed dial basis with his future school nurse. 

✔Get pulled over for doing an illegal U-turn...except there were not any signs telling me that u-turn was illegal. I like to think I got out of a ticket due to my very fashionable shirt, but really it was probably because I had stress ball written all over my face. 

✔Celebrate Talan as he chugs his way on to 5. Half way there! To celebrate we had Krispy Kreme donuts, streamers, and party hats. He was not amused when his class sang happy birthday, but he loved when his teacher sang it in spanish. 

✔Come home to collapse on the couch, and hope no small children need anything for the rest of the evening. This was not the case, but they at least let me get a cat nap.

iPhone debate winner

Ashton tried his hardest. He really wanted that iPhone, obviously enough to make a web diagram.

Even when 99.9% of people were against him he pressed forward and argued his way to success. 

That's right folks. I might have landed on some of your worst parent of the year lists, but my almost 10 year old has an iPhone. 

Before you go defriending me, I can say that this phone is so much more safe and secure than his previous. He can only send and receive calls, and texts from numbers that I have okayed, he can not download anything without a password, I can track his every move with the GPS locator, and he has a safe internet browser set up just for kid use. Can't lose with those options. 

So, here he is, the happiest almost 10 year old on the planet:

My leg that was almost chopped off

Okay, so maybe I had a slim but more like none chance of my leg being amputated, but that doesn't mean I didn't have the desire to break the machete out of the 72 hour kit and live one legged for the rest of my life.

My Valentines day consisted of taking a nice hour long nap while my surgeon, Dr. Young You, (that is absolutely his name. I did not make that up) shoved a camera and 2 instruments inside my knee joint with hopes of shaving out some damaged cartilage. I was home by lunch time, and stayed put on the couch 99% of the time for 3 days.

The night before surgery I wanted to make sure Dr You and I were on the same page as far as which knee was to be operated on. 

The couch wasn't so bad. I was the neighborhood watch for a few days being able to see everyone who was going or coming, who was getting a package, and who was having pizza for dinner. When there is not much else to do it is quite entertaining.

Three days post surgery, I was instructed to remove all bandages and do simple exercises such as bending and lifting my leg, which turned out to be not so simple. Here, for your enjoyment, is the unveiling as seen through my eyes.

Swollen, slightly bruised, but not as bad as I thought.

Nine days post surgery I went to see Dr. You to have stitches removed, get a run down of everything he found while creeping around my knee joint, and hopes to get the okay to take an actual shower, and drive. Turns out I had two small meniscus tears which weren't very bad, and Dr. You says they were only causing about 10% of the pain and swelling I was feeling. The other 90% came from behind my knee cap where once smooth cartilage morphed into a jellyfish looking creature.


This is what the cartilage behind the knee cap is supposed to look like:

smooth

And, this is what mine looked like:

Turns out that is a big problem. Dr You did his best work to shave the cartilage down to this:

Unfortunately, this is a common problem in women, and this cartilage actually begins to deteriorate after age 15. It can not be repaired, bummer, but I can resume normal activities in a couple months, and I assume my knee will tell me when to slow down. For now, I am happy to sleep in my own bed, shower regularly, drive Chappie, and surprisingly, wear normal pants.

9 days post surgery. Stitches out, and only a small amount of swelling.  Not too shabby Dr. You.

You don't mess with a sleeping Talan

Bath time butt dial

Last week Grams had an especially bad week of butt dialing everyone in her contact list. This week, Aunt Tanya has discovered Talan might not know the actual meaning of butt dial.




Aunt Tanya: "okay Talan, turn around so I can wash your butt."

Talan: "haha! butt. thats a funny word"

Aunt Tanya: "okay. lets rinse."

Talan: "make sure you butt dial me!"

Aunt Tanya: "i have never butt dialed you...ever"

Talan: "well....could you?"

This is how Talan leaves his pants after most baths. As if he is still inside them and has dove straight into the floor.

Adolescence

Ashton:

"I think when I come home from school I'll start eating goldfish or something healthy instead of snack cakes every day. Also, I think I'll start working out. I'm about to start puberty and that is when my muscles start changing."

Several months ago I picked up a puberty for boys pamphlet at one of Syphr's routine check ups as a joke. Ashton has not only read, memorized and recited the pamphlet cover to cover, but is also beyond thrilled, and not shy at all, to begin this new chapter in his life which he believes will start the day he turns 10. Lovely.

Things I love:

#37:

Walking into parent teacher conference, only to end up having a conversation about Ashton's massive collection of woot shirts, or his vast scientific knowledge with his really awesome teachers, one of which is a Harry Potter fan and welcomes Ashton's constant Harry Potter references. All this because there is no negative news to report. 

How I love my nerdy kid. He does his all of his homework, studies for tests, and googles the periodic table of elements in his free time while watching episodes of Bill Nye the Science Guy on Itunes. His current most favorite things are pi, the periodic table of elements, the Pythagorean Theorem, and anyone in history that did something great (Ben Franklin, Einstein, MLK, John Hancock). I'm thrilled girls are not on that list yet, although Ashton is still highly confident and makes it known that he could get a girlfriend any time he wants. 

This kid is seriously refreshing. 

The phases of the moon....awesome style

This is the first big project of Ashton's school career. There were no instructions. Twenty two kids were sent home with the knowledge they gained the past 5 weeks in class about the phases of the moon, and told to create a project. 

Mr. Science came up with the idea (with slight help from google), and executed the project with very minimal help. (I got out the paints, and bought the supplies) I offered a suggestion of using star stickers for the stars, but that got an eye roll, sigh and lecture about how stars don't actually look like stars. 

Anyway, I am super proud, and impressed at the excellent job he did. It made me think back to when I was in fourth grade and my dad helped me make an incredibly awesome model of the California Gold Rush. He had a creative mind when it came to building anything like that. I think he would be proud to see Ashton has that quality. They would have loved to build stuff together.  Instead, Ashton is stuck with his lame mom who suggested star stickers for his masterpiece. Guess the creative mind skips a generation.

Brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug...

This is an extremely rare occurrence.

It lasted a whole 15 minutes before drama ensued. I'll take it.

Half Marathon Fail

Fourteen years ago I twisted my knee at basketball tryouts, and couldn't hardly walk on it for almost a week. I never went to the doctor. Needless to say I didn't make the team, but that was probably due to my lack of all skills necessary to play basketball. 

Fast forward  to when I am actually counting on my knees to take me 13.1 miles. 

Within a week and a half of training I ended up with a swollen knee and a nagging feeling that I better get it checked out. The doctor sent me to an orthopedic surgeon with an x-ray and a note that said, 'classic medial meniscus tear'. The meniscus acts like a cushion between the knee joints. After confirming I had no broken bones in my knee I headed for an MRI to see exactly what we were working with and how much damage had been done. 

Today was my follow up for said MRI. I am not pleased.

Not only am I AWESOME at medial meniscus tearing, but I am super great at horizontal tearing a meniscus which happens to be the only kind of tear which can not be repaired, and only gets worse through the years. Go me!! 

When I get around to it (a.k.a. after I stop feeling sorry for myself)I will call and schedule surgery where the doctors will go in and see how deep the tear is, and hopefully scrape out just the right amount of the damage so the tear is not causing a problem anymore but leaving enough of the meniscus behind so I have close to full mobility in that knee. 

I'm sad to not only be banned running until further notice, but also to leave my running partner solo, but I know she will do great anyways. I'm hoping to be fully recovered and have another chance at my 13.1 mile challenge by the end of the year. Hopefully before the world ends in December.