Stiletto Surgery

Pinky toes are gross. Like a little popcorn shrimp on the edge of your foot. Allegedly they are critical to your balance but I don’t buy it. All they are good for is stubbing. My dearest husband has broken his left one so many times that it looks like the detached, flapping limb of a parasitic twin. If I removed my pinky toes I could fit in way more many cute shoes. WHICH PEOPLE DO. Yikes.

But that’s beside the point. However, I’ve forgotten what the point is since all my brilliant ideas come to me in bed and I’m always confident that I’ll remember them the next day but never, ever do. I had so many great things to discuss and here I am discussing pinky toes. Did I mention it’s super hard to put nail polish on the pinky toe because it’s so stupidly tiny?

For those of you that just want updates on the surrogacy process, it is ongoing. The second transfer attempt was May 7th, and this Thursday the 16^th I will go in for blood work to see if it stuck. I’m less vocal about it this time because A) it would become quite monotonous to read about each try if it takes a few, and B) I was naively optimistic the first time and blabbed all about it so I’m a bit more restrained now. The intended mother seems to have no hope that it will ever work, which is completely excusable considering all the things they’ve gone through. Clearly it’s a defense mechanism—not wanting to get her hopes to high because then the fall is too hard. In any case, I’m trying to stay positive. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work. 

In other news, potty training for my baby girl is going swimmingly. At least for #1. She managed to dump a load of #2 on the carpet just the other day, despite the fact that she was wearing underpants. Quite the feat. It’s true what they say about waiting for your kid to be “ready”. I never really pushed the potty training until like a week ago because each time we tried previously the only result was a pile of wet undies and a sad girl. Even with frequent reminders to go potty, she couldn’t anticipate the arrival of the pee until it was too late; then she’d scream, “I’m going pee!” in the most distressed little voice imaginable as she stood helpless and watched it fall to the floor. And of course I’m helpless too, because I can’t whisk her away mid-stream. That just makes a whole path of pee to clean up instead of one puddle. 

I got to clean lots of poop on Mother’s Day, which was delightfully festive. Our dumb dogs think the unfinished basement counts as outside, and I had the pleasure of discovering several massive piles of gag-inducing dog crap on MY day. Pssshhhhaw. (The hub was working so I couldn’t demand that he do it, for anyone wondering.) My other Mother’s Day activities involved cleaning a totally nasty toilet and vacuuming the house. But enough bitching and moaning. We had a lovely dinner with my in-laws, and I got cards and flowers and cookies, so win-win. The kids were abnormally sweet and lovey and even sort of compliant, as if they KNEW it was Mother’s Day, so that was nice. Plus outside was the very definition of perfect: warm sun, cool breeze, with green grass and abundant chirping birds. It was in the upper 60s and I was permitted (by my children) to recline in the lounge chair on the lawn while they played happily and incident-free-ly. Well, incident free until later that evening, when Tuesday bonked her mouth and bit partway through her bottom lip and I had to rush her into the house while cupping my hand under her chin to catch the blood, and until Dirt ran his eye into Dooley’s elbow at full speed after dinner so now he has one helluva shiner. Sort of.

Today is annoyingly hot out though. It’s 80 degrees in my house right now. Uck. And with the heat comes the bugs, which I loathe. However the hell the houseflies get in, they’ve arrived. In. My. House. [I just trapped a big, fat, loud one in the window and now I can’t open it again…not that opening it helps anyway since it’s 86 outside with no wind.] The kids have been thrilled with all the caterpillars they’ve been finding, which is all good and fine until they all morph into a plague of miller moths. Doom. Then the spiders decide it’s too hot outside and come in—probably using the same secret entrance as the flies, or maybe not, since they’re natural enemies and couldn’t cooperate enough to share a secret entrance. Whatevs. And the first mosquito of the year tried to get me a couple days ago. Not that mosquitoes are that bad out here in the wasteland of Colorado’s semi-arid plains, but still. Oh gawd it's oppressively hot in here. I need to move to the mountains. Or Canada. Also need to hook up the giant swamp cooler ASAP but we were shoveling snow like a week ago so it's hard to know when it's time...we still have snow boots next to the flip flops.