cast away

on monday morning, the teen's actual birthday, i got up early to make her breakfast. her special request? that delicious disneyland-style french toast we've come to love so much. totally unhealthy, but so damn good.

and then we took off to make her 9:00 appointment at kaiser to have her ankle looked at and the cast removed. yay! she was so grumpy about that thing, and while i've never had the misfortune to have one, i can only imagine what a pain in the ass it must've been. and she was lucky - only two weeks, vs. 6, 8, or longer. so it was a great birthday present - first, to miss the first half of the school day, and then to be able to walk around much less encumbered.

at the nurses' station, she was super thrilled to see that her hard work at the gym of late was definitely paying off. she weighed less than before, and she still had the cast on.

the good doctor was all smiles when he caught sight of me with the camera in hand. ham!

he sent us here and instructed us to return after the cast had been cut off:

i pointed out the "closed" sign to the teen, but she waved it off, saying "it always says that, mom."

and she was right. a few minutes later, the door opened, another patient hobbled out with a new walking cast of her own, and the nurse smiled and let us in. the first thing i saw was this:

and then the nurse got to work on taking that thing off.

i told the teen she looked mummified.

eeewwwwwwww:

we'd forgotten to bring her other shoe in with us, so she ended up sporting this thing instead:

she was absolutely mortified at the sight of her bare leg, stuck in a cast for two weeks, untouched by a razor. i took a picture of that hairy ass limb, but even i won't post that here. besides, she'd probably chop me into a thousand pieces and spread me across the desert if i did.

we went back to have the doctor inspect the previously-injured ankle. the bean decided it'd be fun to make like a monkey and climb up to see her sister.

and then she caught sight of a little chair that was just her size.

the doc came in, typed a bunch of stuff in the computer, and examined the teen's ankle. as he did this, the bean let me know in no uncertain terms that she was hungry. so i pulled out the nursing cover, got down to business, and he looked over at us.

"how old is your baby?" he asked.
"a year and a half," i answered.

with a tilt of his head, he said "so when you gonna stop that?"

annoyed and caught off guard, i popped off. "i don't know. whenever i'm good and ready to."

he didn't catch the irritation in my response. "you know, it's going to be impossible to stop now. she's gonna think you're punishing her when you don't let her have it."

"hmmmmmm," i said, and i kissed the top of the bean's head and ignored him. look, buddy, i'm paying you to take care of the teen. keep your dumb ass opinions on other shit to yo'self.

he handed the teen a note to take to school that excused her from p.e. for a week, and then told us to return to the cast room to have a removable brace put on until the teen was ready to take it off. i thought it looked sort of like an OG roller skate.

we headed towards home so that the teen could put a pair of jeans on - the nurse told her that her skin would be super sensitive and that waiting to shave until the next day was ideal. on the way, we stopped off for a birthday treat from starbucks.

caramel frappuccino, no whip, extra caramel sauce.

and that was it! she was so stoked to have that cast off at last, and now we're looking forward to relaxing mani/pedis on saturday with her friends, followed by a fun birthday dinner.

birthday princess month continues!