Last night I made the mashed potatoes and cranberries. Today comes roasting the turkey, sweet potatoes and heating up the mashed potatoes. Oh, and stuffing. And then we take off out of town to a water resort hotel, the whole family. And, by the way things roll, my Monthly Visitor has come to brighten the day.

Goodness.

Still, I am greatful for the day, blessed by family, health, and warmed in spirit. This is the first “vacation” we’ve taken that I haven’t used our credit card for. I purchased it months ago with cash and am taking cash with. I hope that is a preview of our finances to come – increased responsibility with our money, and the ability to live without being indebted to anyone. It is a big goal, but I don’t feel as if it is unreasonable.

The house is filled with delicious smells, sounds, and the excitement of a change, a ruffle in the regular mechanics of day-to-day life. It is pleasing, and I am filled with gratitude.

Today’s lunch is brought to you by Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie.

Though I’m not big into pre-packaged or frozen meals, in the past few years I’ve broken down and have added more of them to my shopping cart. The summer days, with the four boys home, always leads to a significant increase in our grocery spending and food consumption. I know that I often break down and will do take-out because I am short on time. But it isn’t like take-out is any more “healthy organic” than frozen.

I wish I had the time and discipline to be a better homemaker, meal-planning, gardening, cooking, cleaning. But with me working, now (out of the home and at home), my time for those things has lessened. And frankly, I didn’t feel I was doing all that well as a homemaker before I started working outside the home (which is why I figured I might as well get a job since I was wasting my time on my butt at home).

I wish I weren’t so confused.

Nine weeks ago Franny was hit by a car while crossing the road after getting dropped off from the school bus. He was fine, save for his broken leg, some fractured foot bones and a bad wound on his foot. Today is he had a check-up.

Initially, he had surgery to clean and repair his injury and started with a fixator for 5 weeks (which was removed an replaced with a blue cast about a month ago). Today the cast was to come off for x-rays and then either a walking boot OR another cast. We’ve been discussing cast color for a couple weeks and the color was green. IF he got a cast. He was hoping for a boot. He was very nervous about the cast removal, but also very interested and excited.

The morning started with a hair washing in the bathroom sink. I meant to do it in the kitchen, but he started wetting his hair in the bathroom.

Getting dressed and ready to go.

I packed the pain meds, just in case, and his brother’s PSP for distraction purposes.

We stopped at McDonald’s (per Franny’s request). He got a McGriddle, while I picked up a chicken biscuit (one for me and one for Frank who was meeting us at the clinic). I was so nervous I couldn’t eat, though. After Franny’s cast wedging experience, and his own anxiety over the saw, I was a wreck. I didn’t want him to know that, though.

We were familiar with the man who removed the cast. He made Franny’s first splint and came to the room once when Franny was in the hospital. Today they were set to have their Child Life Specialist come in and talk to Franny before his cast removal, due to my phone call the day before, but by the time they made it in the room, Franny’s cast was off. The cast guy was aware of Franny’s concerns and reassured him that it would take less than 2 minutes to cut and crack it. Franny had worn headphones and played his game.

Franny loves for me to take pictures. He actually asked the doctor if pictures could be taken during surgery (the 2nd time he had surgery).

The saw is lying across the table. He cut down both sides and is using the tool in his hands to split/separate the cast.

You can see a little blood/drainage. Does it ook you out? We’ve seen way worse (like the day of the accident), so it didn’t shock us. When the rods were removed from his leg, they blue cast was put right on, so any blood or drainage was going to be inside the cast. Don’t worry, I won’t show you the inside pictures.

His leg, to us, looked great. Last we had seen it, there were 4 rods, dozens of gooky, pussy stitches, swelling and an ugly blister. Most of the scabs from where the  stitches were was gone, blister was removed in surgery. The holes from the rods were closed. His leg was not really visibly much different from his “good” leg, size-wise. It was a beautiful thing to be able to feel and touch his leg, his foot.

As he sat in the waiting room for x-rays, he wanted me to touch his leg. After the x-rays, while we waited, he just stared at his leg, at my hand moving across his skin, his shin,  foot, his ankle. The things we simply take for granted… I miss the simple act of washing his foot while I did his pin care. It was as if it was a sacred moment for us. Just as it was sitting in the examination room, quietly running my fingers over his scars, his healing bones, his traumatized foot. Priceless.

The news of having to have another cast put on was disappointing. Franny was SO much hoping for a walking boot, and he told the doctor just that. “But Francesco. You can walk with this cast. You’ll get a cast boot so you can. We want you to walk on it now, as much as possible and without crutches. This will help your bone heal and grow.”

This changed his perspective. He went over his color choices again, deciding on orange with some green striping thrown in for good measure.

As the cast technician prepared his leg, Franny asked a million and one questions. What are you doing? When will you put the color on? Do you like doing this? Do you get paid good? You DO?! How much do you get paid to do this? (pause) I might want to do this… cast tech. might be my job. I don’t know, but I know I want to work in a hospital. After an assault of questions that came too fast to answer, the technician smiled and asked him to be patient and just watch. And watch he did.

Watch, and ask more questions.

He’s slowly getting accustomed to putting a bit of weight on his foot. Two crutches, one crutch… standing with no crutches. It will take a bit of time for him to be comfortable with the boot and simply walking. As disappointed as he was with getting a cast, it was a good experience for him go through the process of having a cast being put on. Last time he was in surgery, going to sleep with a fixator and waking up with a cast. This time he got to witness everything from start to finish, and since he’s interested in orthopedics, he’s got a front row seat. I think everyone in our family has been learning and growing through the struggles of the past couple months. It is good to see Franny take something traumatic and make good of it, as much as he is able.

Today Franny got the external fixator removed and a cast put on. There was actually a foot-holder with a strapped harness that hooked around the top rod, but this picture was taken while it was off. You can see him playing his brother’s handheld game. He usually played a game or watched television as I did the pin care and wrapped things up.

Franny started out very shy, not wanting to even look at the fixator. I’d have to cover it up with an ace bandage because he couldn’t stand looking at the rods and didn’t want other people to see them. For days. Weeks. And then one day he was liberated, I think, by Dante’s soccer team friends. The boys gathered around to ask questions and say “hello” and some of them would freak out at the sight of the rods. Franny would pull the covering back to show more, boldly. They told him he was a tough kid, saying words that empowered him. He’ll even bend his knee up to touch his ear with it, which makes his dad’s stomach sick.

Casts are pretty common, but the fixators you don’t see every day, and sometimes people will hold their gaze longer, or the kids (and moms especially) will be uncomfortable looking at it.  I told him, hey, smile and keep on going. And he did. Sometimes he’d even wave.

Even though going from a fixator to a cast is progress, there is some… comfort in routine. There are also pluses with the fixator, like being able to wash and massage his toes. He likes that. But he was very eager to get a cast, regardless, as casts are more “normal” in the realm of broken legs.

He wanted his hardware.

As creepy as they might be, I’m rather thankful to them for holding my son’s leg back together.

A blue cast was requested, and granted. He also got this toy. Blue was the day’s theme.

Back to elevating the leg above the heart again for a few days. We’ve got that down pat, now, though.

I’ve read in numerous places that not getting enough sleep can lead to overeating and obesity. Though I understood the thought behind that theory, I couldn’t pull up a tangible firsthand experience of fatigue-eating.

Until today.

And now that it happened, there behind me lay a memory trail of same-day experiences from years past.

I got to bed late last night, for starters. Two hours before my alarm went off, I woke twice because Franny’s splint had come clean off of his leg. The body and brain has an amazing way of waking itself up as best it can, but me trying to wrap and replace while ripping imaginary cobwebs from my brain was not optimum circumstances for mommy-nurse.

The alarm jolted me from my cozy slumber, but I got up to make sure the kids were up, dressed and fed, then I plopped on the couch, dozing on and off. My hope was to get them off to school, Franny situated, and take a light hour nap. But as I asked Franny for the umpteenth time, Do you need ANYTHING? Food? Bathroom? Anything? – he finally agreed that yes, he was ready for breakfast, bathroom and basically keeping me on my toes all day.

Forget the nap!! Ha.

So I made us eggs, waffles and blueberries and decided to get on with my day. I scrubbed the bathroom floor and toilet, threw a load of laundry in, changed his wrappings and fixed his splint, answered emails, did some work from home… all the while with a nagging urge to munch, munch. Two cups of coffee down the hatch I went into work for an hour while my mom watched Franny. Munched trail mix on the way.

Ate dinner tonight even though I had been grazing all day and really didn’t need the calories. And half-way through my second small helping of noodles, my mind flashed back to the articles I’d read about overeating and its relation to not getting enough sleep.

Bingo.

My appetite was insatiable, all day long, even with a happily fed tummy. I’ll have to remember that as I tuck myself in later than I should each night.

It has been a rough week for me, emotionally. I took off yesterday for family concerns and found I need to take off today, too, simply to recouperate. I don’t really like to take a day off to pay bills, catch up, or simply relax, but maybe that’s what “vacation” days have come to.

At any rate, I ended up checking my work email anyway, and now I’m going to go to the bookstore. Normally I don’t purchase brand new books (my how things have changed – I used to want ALL my books to be new), but I have a gift card from Christmas that’s been burning a hole in my pocketbook. A nice, long stay at the bookstore is a bit of a vacation to me.

A while back I talked about homecationing / staycations, and now I’m wondering – what do YOU do with your day off? If you take one, unplanned, with no destination, what do you do for a “mental or spiritual health” day?

Things I enjoy that are uplifting for me are:

books/book stores (often Goodwill and Salvation Army), and the library
going to a movie
baking (a houseful of bakery aroma = bliss)
writing
cleaning (I feel more content in a less-cluttered home)
singing
walking
driving