Take it Like a...Hmmm, Not a Man!
I broke my pinky toe today, which isn’t really funny, except for the circumstances surrounding the break are actually a little funny…or maybe pathetic is a more appropriate word.
I was actually jumping up off the couch to go fix a broken link that I had posted earlier on Twitter, because I suck at doing important tasks on my iPhone. So, I hopped off the couch like my ass was on fire, as we all know that Twitter business is urgent and must be taken care of ASAP.
My pinky toe got caught on one of Peanut’s teeny tiny little Adidas tennis shoes, and SNAP! There went the toe. I know it’s broken. It’s shiny, stiff, and an odd shade of purplish/black. It’s a good thing summer is over, as it’s not exactly looking very flip flop friendly at the moment.
Sadly, this isn’t the first toe I’ve broken from tripping over kids’ crap. Several years ago, I was trying to reach something off the top shelf of my oldest son’s closet and I thought his Little Tikes shopping cart would make an excellent step stool. Not even five seconds later, I was on the ground holding my foot and screaming a string of obscenities that I won’t repeat here because I don’t tolerate that type of language on my blog;)
Anyway, the last time I broke my toe the doctor didn’t do anything for the toe at all, and it just ended up being a waste of a co-payment. So today, I decided to suck it up and take it like a…wait, I refuse to say man here because I’m married to one and I know his threshold for pain is, like, zero on the Richter scale. (Yes, I know Richter scales are for earthquakes and not pain, but whatever.)
If he had the broken toe, he would’ve rolled around on the ground for an hour; ranting about how much pain he was in, complete with, “You don’t understand how bad this hurts. You’ve never been in this much pain before.”
Yeah, you’re right! I don’t know what pain is! I guess those 8 pound babies I pushed out of my loins without any drugs were the equivalent of taking a nice, relaxing Hawaiian vacation. Silly me!
Then I would have the pleasure of waiting on him hand and foot while he lies on the couch being a royal pain until he’s ‘healed.’
To further prove my point, my husband was mortified by my decision to not go to the doctor. He keeps sending me texts from work saying, “I really think you should go.” Yeah, yeah, yeah. He even ended up coming home in the middle of the day because he “forgot something,” but I think he really just wanted to spy on me.
My husband gave me that disapproving, “I know you haven’t done anything today” look. Gee, I don’t know what could’ve given that away, as I looked around at the piles of unwashed laundry exploding from our laundry room or the uneaten sandwich crusts still strewn all over the table from lunch or a wide open freezer door from one of Peanut’s hit and run attacks on our fridge. Sigh.
Right before my husband went back to work, he insisted that I get off of my feet and lay down on the couch with an ice pack on my foot. That lasted a whopping five minutes, until my four year-old son came running up to me and said, “Mom, come see what Peanut’s doing!” Yeah, that one never, ever ends well.
So, I decided to get up and see what the damage was. I walked into the kitchen and saw Peanut crouched over on the counter like a raccoon, eating dried-up rice cereal that he dumped out, and next to him, a carton of raw EGGS! If I had waited just a minute longer, my countertop – no, scratch that, my entire kitchen – would’ve become one Peanut-sized, crunchy omelette.
This is why us moms have no choice but to be tough as nails when we are sick or injured. Who else is going to do this?
Kristen is a stay-at-home mom with five children, who somehow manages to find enough time (and sanity) at the end of a long day to write for her blog, Peanut Layne.
