Fingers Crossed

Multitasking has never been my forte, so I'm not entirely sure why I thought it would be a good idea to reach for the dog's collar while my hands were full of hot coffee, chicken feed, and my cell phone. Suffice to say, it didn't work out so well for me or for the chicken feed. The phone, dog, and coffee mug were fine. 

I am excellent in a crisis - calm, cool, collected - I am the gal you call when you need someone in a pinch. These are thoughts that went through my mind as I calmly, coolly, and collectedly gathered up my keys, purse, and kids to drive myself to the ER. I thought briefly about popping my pinkie back into place myself, but just as quickly dismissed that idea, deciding that the kids finding me face down and unconscious in the yard would probably have a slight traumatizing effect on them.

So one Very Exciting Ride to the ER during which I passed out on my neighbor, two hours of staring at my Dr. Seussified digit, three e-rays, and four shots of happy numby time juice later... I was off to the hand surgeon, and considering a new line of children's counting cards.

Typing, painting, writing, everything = impossible.

 Unless something needs to be bludgeoned. That I can do.

There's nothing quite like hearing your doctor casually mention the words amputation, deformity, and permanently crippled in passing. I'm sure she came away from our appointment concerned about my hearing and my intelligence, in addition to her concerns over my pinkie finger. I just know I've never said "Wait, what?" and "Are you serious?!" and "No, Really?!" that many times in one sitting since the time the boys tried to come up with a better explanation for why they'd sent their little sister into the middle of the street than "just to see if she would do it".

So here I am, one lengthy, elaborate, and sure to be expensive surgery later, and I am even more dramamartery than usual, which is really something. I haven't seen what's under my elephantine bandage yet, but I really am hoping they were able to pull off the Swiss Army finger attachment that we talked about in pre-op. Fingers crossed. Maybe. I can't feel my fingers.

I'm off to start physical therapy asap, so, as my surgeon likes to say, my "fingers don't atrophy and fall off!" He always laughs at that point, but I'm fairly certain he's serious about it. If they do fall off, I'm absolutely getting a hook with a swiss army knife attachment. In the meantime, farm chores don't wait. I'm off to wave my club arm around and force the kids into doing my work for me.

Fun Fact!

Remember that kid from the movie Jerry Maguire? You know, the annoying kid that the movie producers tried to make all cutesy with his big glasses, frothy mop of hair, and adorable dimples? Sure, he was cute. Cute as a honey badger. I know better. And, if you've ever spent more than five minutes in the presence of a kid, you know better, too.

Honey badgers have blond, spiky hair, too.

Here's what the movie producers didn't take into consideration. We know that kid wasn't messin' around with all those facts he kept spouting. We know he meant business. Kids are natural born badgerers. I know this because I, too, have one of these honey badger children. As in, I am badgered relentlessly with random facts and information. And when I say badgered, I am referring to the steady stream of trivia, factoids, one liners, "Fun Facts!", and "Hey, Mom! Did you know...s" that run as a nearly non-stop accompaniment to my parenting life. 

While I have no doubt that I am currently raising the greatest trivia master that the world has ever seen, it's a little difficult to appreciate at times, seeing as she's currently too young to cash in on it. Trivia night at the local pub tends to be a 21 and over affair. 

As I type this, I am being regaled with facts as far ranging as video game trivia, the origin of chocolate chip cookies, quirky traits that twins share, and the intricacies of watermelon hybridization. I'm sure someday, as I proudly watch her raze the competition on Jeopardy, I'll understand that all this was totally worth it. 

But in the meantime, I'm starting to consider the possibility of instituting a trivia-free zone for the summer. Or, perhaps I'll prohibit the reading of anything educational. Maybe I could reinstitute a "Quiet Time" like when I still outweighed them and could make them stay in their rooms for an hour after lunch. Or at the very least, I could try banning the words, "Hey, mom!" from my offspring's vocabulary. 

Fun Fact: Summer vacation is exactly 74 days long! That's also about 1/1,000 the length of a Giant Tortoise's life span, and about 6,000 times the length of Louis-Antoine's reign in 1830 in France.