Y’all, I think I’m falling apart.

My knee is still all screwed up. I have NO IDEA what I did to it. But last Thursday I woke up and it was swollen. Kind of red and hot to the touch. Not sore really, just kind of… stiff and achy. I went to the doctor the next day and it was diagnosed as prepatellar bursitis. I have no idea how it happened, my best guess is that I was crawling around on the floors a lot cleaning out our office/junk room and rearranging Maggie’s toys and stuff. Because the swelling had gone down a bit and it wasn’t hot anymore, she told me just to take it easy, keep icing it throughout the day, and take ibuprofen for the swelling. So I did.

And it was fine for a few days. A little swelling here and there after I’d been walking around a lot, but nothing major. But yesterday and today it has gotten a lot worse, almost as bad as last week. It’s not hot (thankfully!) so I’m not worried about infection at this point, but it’s a little bit sore and DEFINITELY swollen. GRRR.

I’ve been trying to take it easy and not do a whole lot during the day, but um… have you ever tried to ‘take it easy’ with a toddler? Not exactly easy. Dan has been great in the evenings and played with her after dinner while I sat on the couch like a big lazy loser with a frozen bag of corn on my knee.

I’m not sure what to do. I’m not in any pain so I’m hesitant to go back to the doctor just yet. She said that I should be careful for a few weeks, so maybe that means it’s normal that it hasn’t gone away yet? I am just SO not wanting to go back to the doctor because the other option besides the ibuprofen and ice was sticking a FREAKING NEEDLE IN MY KNEE AND DRAINING IT. And then sticking ANOTHER NEEDLE IN and injecting some kind of steroid.

Is it weird that I labored to 7cm dilation without an epidural (and then willingly allowed a stranger to stick a needle IN MY SPINE) but I’m freaking out at the idea of a needle going into my swollen kneecap?

I just wish I knew what I did to my knee. So I’d have a cool story, like I was fighting ninjas or something. Instead I’m all ‘um yeah, I was crawling on the floor with my kid and now my knee looks like it has a golf ball inside of it.‘ LAME.

Anyway, enough whining. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m donating all my ad revenue this month to Susan G. Komen For The Cure in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. So here’s some more interesting reading material. Unless you find whining about mysterious knee ailments entertaining.

A Halloween costume that I’m sure made my mother so proud.

Who knew someone could blog 15 paragraphs about garbage can shopping?

I get mistaken for an athlete. Totally happens all the time. (um, just kidding.)

Starting my kid young on the whole blogging thing. Not bad for a 7 month old.

I know I’ve been a bit scarce on here for the past week or so. Other than saying ‘Hi, I’m going pink!‘ and ‘Hi! I went to see an 80s boy band reunite in concert!‘, it’s been pretty much crickets. But trust me, there’s good reason!

We’ve spent the last 2 weekends clearing out our old office/junk room (And when I say ‘junk room’, I mean it. You seriously have NO IDEA how much crap was shoved in this room. It was truly a sight to behold. And for once, I forgot to take a picture, to which Dan said ‘Your Internet friends will just have to survive with the visual.’ He’s no fun.) The plan was to clear it all out, clean it, and then move Maggie’s toys in.

Last Sunday, we did most of the heavy work- packing up stuff for good will, garbage, selling on eBay, moving downstairs, etc etc. And we successfully dismantled our huge, L-shaped desk, carried it downstairs in 2 pieces- just Dan and me!- and then put it back together down in the basement. Then I set up the computer and office area down there and proceeded to crash after EIGHT HOURS of cleaning and moving and throwing away of stuff.

Then the week came and if you have a toddler, you know how it is when the week starts and The Help (in this case, The Husband) heads back to work. NOTHING GETS ACCOMPLISHED. I think I hung a few things on the wall one afternoon, but other than that, nothing. Then I spent Friday and Saturday in Cleveland and was too busy ogling Jordan Knight to care much about finishing the playroom. But Sunday arrived and we spent the day moving books and bookshelves and cleaning out the closet in the soon-to-be playroom and oh boy did I find some good stuff in there for blog fodder, but that’s for another day. (Think: CRINGE.)

By Sunday night, things were looking pretty good. Maggie’s toys are now all moved into her new playroom. Notice I didn’t say ‘organized in her new playroom’ because that’s just way too ambitious quite yet. I did buy a bunch of storage containers today at Target so as soon as I get a chance to get in there when she’s not, I’ll try and get things arranged. I have to do it alone because have you ever tried to sort toys with a toddler watching? Things get undone just as quickly as you do them.

So! Next on the list for House Projects?

- cut and paint baseboards for the basement
- hang curtains in basement (bought these today, hey just doing my part to try to keep that economy rolling)
- buy and hang curtains in playroom
- decorate playroom!
- find a new front thingie (technical term) for our downstairs fireplace
- repaint the upstairs bathroom (the old wallpaper glue is peeling and crackling under the paint, so this is going to be a fun project, lots of sanding and priming and OH WHAT FUN.)

Never a dull moment around our house! I think most of the time, Dan is ready to kill me because as soon as he is home for 5 seconds, I either thrust Maggie in his direction and get to work on something or I give him a To Do list.

Just a random tidbit to finish this post up: My kid dipped a blueberry in ketchup yesterday. AND ATE IT.

It’s not often you get to go back to when you were ten years old and right a wrong. In fact, I’d say most people never get the chance to fix something they may regret about their past. I am one lucky girl: last night, I had the opportunity to do just that.

I saw The New Kids On The Block in concert. OH YEAH BABY.

It was the most ridiculous, hilarious, fun thing I have done in a long time. And I got to go with some awesome girls and we had a freaking BLAST (Melissa, I so so so missed you during the show! Next year?!! LOL!) We left with ears ringing, throats sore (SO. MUCH. SCREAMING.) and giddy with excitement from it all. I’m pretty sure there was nobody there younger than 25 or older than 35- lots of 20/30ish ladies reliving their youth and it was just insane.

Today, I am exhausted. (stupid air mattress that deflated in the middle of the night! grr) I spent my first night away from home since Maggie was born, and guess what? THE SKY DID NOT FALL IN. I sure missed my baby girl though.

Joey and Jordan are cute, but they’re no match for her.

What is it with babies and kids fighting naps? SERIOUSLY. When you’re a grown up, for the most part, it’s Hey, I’m kinda tired. I’m gonna go to sleep! Or it’s at least Hey, I WANT to go to sleep.

Maggie just fought a nap for 2 hours. She didn’t go to bed until 10 last night (fought bedtime too, imagine that!) and then woke up at 5 for a little while. A short snuggle on the couch and she was back to sleep until 7:30, but the late night and interrupted morning and she was one CRANKY HUMAN BEING this morning. After trying unsuccessfully for a morning nap (which she never takes anymore, but she was tired and rubbing her eyes so I thought I’d give it a shot) I gave her lunch and then we read a few books, I asked her if she was ready to take a nap (”No!” and shakes her head.) but I put her in her crib anyhow. A while later she was SCREAMING so I went to check on her. Gave her a pacifier (which had been thrown across the room) and snuggled her up in her blanket while she sat in the corner of her crib. She quieted down.

I went and stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, just to see what was up. I wasn’t about to drag my bum knee (more on that in a minute) down the steps only to have her start crying again. She does that- as SOON as we sit down or get settled back in bed, how do they KNOW?? Anyway, she was quiet still so I went and peeked through the crack in the door.

The poor child? WAS FALLING ASLEEP SITTING UP. Seriously, her eyes were drifting closed and she was doing that wobbling-back-and-forth thing and kept jerking her head to keep herself awake. She was clearly exhausted, but she’s so stubborn that she won’t just relax and let go and just take a nap, for goodness sake.

But somehow, she’s not tired and not ready for a nap. Uh-huh. 5 minutes later, she’s asleep.

This kid thing drives me batty sometimes, you know?

Anyway, so my bum knee! Yeah I don’t even know. I woke up this morning and it kind of felt bruised on the side, which was strange because I don’t remember bumping it on anything. But, I’m pretty clumsy and I’m always running into things so I could have done it and not remembered. A little while later I knelt down on the floor and it HURT. On the front this time. What? So I looked and… wow, definitely swollen. Right in the front under the kneecap, very squishy and sore and hot. It only really hurts when I touch it (or when my daughter kicks it with her foot while we’re reading a book, oh yes, that felt WONDERFUL.) but it’s pretty stiff when I get up from sitting or being on the floor or something. The first thing that came to mind was ‘water on the knee‘ but the big question is HOW? I haven’t done anything physical since Sunday unless you count going to MyGym and grocery shopping with Maggie on Monday morning and I don’t think that really counts. Yesterday I was at home working all day, nice and quiet and non-knee-injuring computer work.

Apparently, our Broken Things Epidemic has now spread to my joints. Oh goodie.

I took some ibuprofen while should help with the swelling, and it kind of did I guess. If it doesn’t get better in a couple of days, I’ll call the doctor. But I will tell you one thing: it had BETTER not be any worse tomorrow. Tomorrow is NKOTB!!! I need my dancin’ legs.

Finally, I just want to announce and elaborate on last night’s rushed and exhausted Pink For October post. I’m taking inspiration from my good friend BurghBaby’s Mom who all last month was drumming up traffic for her blog and donating all of her ad revenue to the Flight 93 Memorial fund. I think it was a super idea and I spent quite a bit of time clicking through her pages when I could rather than just reading in my feed reader. It was for a great cause, after all. And so this month, I’ll be donating all of my (rather meager!) ad funds to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. So click click click through my site and get those BlogHer ads rolling! They pay per pageview (more if you click on the ad!) so why not take a stroll through my archives? Here are a few to get you started:

Read my very first post here at Jayesel, back in August of 2005!

‘Timing is Everything‘. Oh yes, it most certainly is.

Our final email exchange before becoming solely responsible for another human life. We are so mature. (He DID show up with the milkshake, btw. The next day, I went into labor. Coincidence??)

I was a published writer at age 12. Sorta.

Our Italy trip recap! There are a bunch of posts for that, with photos! (but for whatever reason they’re not showing up on the blog. Click through to Flickr if you want to see those.)

That should keep you busy for a while. Go Pink!

Just a quick update before I crawl upstairs and crash in bed. If you click through from your feed reader (Hi, you!) you’ll see that I’m participating in this year’s Pink For October to help bring attention to Breast Cancer Month. (Anyone else IN SHOCK that it’s October already? What the heck happened to September?) The lovely Teresa built this pink theme for Wordpress and has it free for download if you’re interested.

I had planned to write more about breast cancer awareness and how important it is that we all do regular self-exams and get mammograms… but it’s now 11:30 and Maggie just screamed at us for an hour before finally falling asleep so forgive me for not elaborating. We all know the drill: CHECK YOUR BOOBIES FOR LUMPS.

(I can just imagine the Google hits I’m going to get from that one. heh.)

It seems like there are a billion things right now that are broken and in need of repair in our house. Okay, so it’s really more like 4 or 5. I’ve been known to exaggerate a bit now and then.

My laptop. It’s currently in-transit to HP Service to have the monitor/graphics card/motherboard replaced. It’s really quite pathetic how much I miss it. Mainly I miss having things happen on a computer when I click on them, rather than THREE SECONDS LATER. Typing is just annoying. I’m lookin’ at you, Old Desktop.

Our toaster oven. Maybe a year old or so? I don’t quite remember… but it’s definitely not OLD. It no longer turns off unless you unplug it. And it smells like burnt plastic when used. I picked up a new one yesterday at Target for $29.99. Just doing my part to help that hurting economy.

Dan’s glasses. Maggie tore them off of his face last week and bent the ear piece. He seems to have salvaged them for now… though he really needs some new ones anyway. They are like a gazillion years old and kind of gross. He got new ones last year but lost them. And no, I haven’t let him hear the end of that one.

My glasses. Yup- both of us have broken glasses. Mine are un-fixable by me, so I’ll be taking them tomorrow to get repaired. It happened yesterday morning. It was oh-so-quiet back in our bedroom while I was packing the bag for our morning errands, and when I went back to investigate, she had my glasses by the ear pieces and was twisting them all around. GAH. So I’m wearing my old, very scratched up glasses for now. They slide off of my nose every 2 seconds.

ME. I have been feeling like crap lately. It started last week when I had two afternoons where I seriously could not stay awake for ONE. MORE. MINUTE. And before you go getting all excited and thinking I’m pregnant, I’m not. I was actually having That Thing that makes you KNOW you aren’t pregnant last week, so I just chalked it up to that (though it was an unusual symptom for me). But I’m still feeling it this week again. We got decent sleep through the weekend (Thank You Sleeping Child!) so that can’t be it. (Today of course my tiredness is from the overtime Monday Night Football game last night, combined with the fact that Maggie woke up at 2am for about a half an hour, and then woke up for the day at 7:30.) I’ve had some headaches the past few days, which could be my fall allergies acting up, and my stomach has been a little… off for a few days. Maybe just be a bug or a funk or something? But it’s getting in the way of the 5,928 projects we have going on, I NEED TO BE PRODUCTIVE. And when I spend the afternoon drowsily playing with my daughter for an hour before giving in and letting her watch Elmo while I doze on the couch… I feel kind of guilty, you know?

So I think that’s it. For now. I’m just watching my new car VERY CAREFULLY, because if something happens to it, I WILL BE VERY VERY SAD.

Hi! What did you do today? Did you spend 3 hours trying to get your child to quit whining and just TAKE A NAP ALREADY? Only to have her PAINT HER CRIB WITH POOP?

No? Well, you totally should have come over to our house, because that’s what we did! You really missed out on the fun. We’ll try and call you next time so you can be there for the festivities. (Dear God, Please let there not be a ‘Next Time’. Love, Me.)

Today started awesome. (And it ended pretty good too, thankfully.) After 2 nights of not sleeping very well, thanks to a cold and some teething (why do they ALWAYS happen at the same time?) Maggie slept through the night and we all woke up at 8:40. EIGHT-FORTY! Praise the heavens! Got up, had breakfast, cleaned up the kitchen, Maggie and Dan went outside to play.

Everything was fine until around 11 when Maggie walked into her room and pointed to her crib, like she wanted to take a nap. Okay then! I said, let’s take a nap! Twenty minutes later, she still wasn’t sleeping and was fussing, so I brought her out and gave her some lunch. Tried the nap thing again after a while. She seemed into the whole idea and was quiet in her room for a while. Then I heard her crying again, so I went in to investigate.

As soon as I opened the door, I could smell it. I said, Did you poop?

Nooooo, she said, shaking her head. Of course I knew she was lying, I could totally smell it. And then… I SAW IT.

On the crib rails. On her hands. On her back. On the back of her pants. (Thankfully not on her face or her mouth or OH MY GOSH I WOULD HAVE PUKED.)

You see, she has recently taken to this habit, a very Al Bundy-type habit, of sticking her hand down the back of her diaper when she’s just kind of hanging out. I keep telling her ‘Get your hands out of your pants, please.‘ but she just keeps doing it. And up until now, it’s been okay. Clean diapers, you see. But this time… not so much.

As soon as anything like this happens as a parent- puking, poop everywhere, whatever- you instantly click into Survival Mode. Must be something that happens when you birth a kid, I dunno. What do I need to do to a) contain the mess? and b) clean it up? Dan was downstairs working out, listening to his iPod and I knew he would never hear me yelling for him. I picked her up and just kept saying ‘Don’t touch anything! Keep your hands up!‘ and she (mercifully) listened to me. I stripped her down, tried to wipe things up as best I could, all the while I was stomping on the floor as hard as I could to try to get Dan’s attention. Amazingly enough, it worked after a few minutes (but not before I had Maggie cracking up at my goofy stomping. What a sight we were- me stomping around with my poo-covered kid laughing at me.)

Dan came in, and I told him Fill the tub! We have poop! I got her in and cleaned up, and Dan changed her sheets, cleaned (and Lysoled!!) her crib rails, and everything was back to normal (except for the faint odor in her room… heh.)

But then, SHE DID NOT NAP. We were supposed to be going to his grandma’s house later for a birthday party, so she REALLY needed to take a nap. But soon it was nearly 3pm and she was showing no signs of slowing down. We tried all the usual tricks, but nothing worked. Finally we loaded up the car, took the long way to Target, and by the time we got there, she was out. Dan went in to get a few things while I sat in the parking lot with a sleeping kid and Dan’s Blackberry to keep me entertained. Thankfully she slept until we got to his grandma’s house, so she had a good hour nap. Not her usual 2 hour nap, but it was better than nothing.

And then? After being Ms. Cranky-Pants McNotGonnaNapToday? She was an absolute ANGEL at the party. Seriously. Totally charming the pants off of everybody, never whined or fussed once, performing all of her ‘tricks’ (’What’s a chicken say? What’s a duck say?‘ This is totally why people have kids, it’s like a constant variety show!) Why do kids do this? Parents tell horror stories of miserable, cranky kids, but it seems like family and friends always get to see the Good Side. Which is obviously a good thing in this case, because Dan and I were able to take a breather for a few hours and let everyone else watch our kid and just have a few moments of peace at the end of a crazy, crazy week.

So, the day ended just fine. Started well, ended well… just with some poop in between. A poo-sandwich, if you will.

Also: You are welcome for the free birth control.