My husband and I decided to take the little one to Disney World a few weeks ago because it was the last year we could do it in the off season without her missing school, there’d been a lot going on so we all badly needed a break and, well, YOLO basically. We had a lovely time apart from the bit where I was frolicking happily with my daughter and my body was like, “No youthful fun for you, old lady!” and shut that down immediately with a horrifying swelling purple Class 2 sprain on BOTH sides of my ankle. I am not a weeny about pain but DANG did that hurt. It looked pretty scary too and I had to get it x-rayed at the Disney emergency care place and you can’t take me anywhere, really.

I had to use a wheelchair the rest of the trip but it was nice to actually have the little one on my lap where we could hear each other instead of down in the stroller, aka the cone of “What?”. I can laugh about it now but when it first happened and I was doing that extremely painful limp across all of EPCOT to the First Aid station… by myself… in the rain… using the empty stroller as a walker because I literally couldn’t put any weight on it when it first happened, I was having a Grade A emotional breakdown. From the more immediate concerns such as “Had I ruined the entire vacation for everyone?” to Big Picture insanity like, “What if this means I’m too old to ever play with my daughter again and death is near?” it was not my finest hour.

The one highlight of all this was when I came out of the emergency care place on crutches, my little toddler ran up to me, hugged my leg, kissed my knee and said earnestly, “Mama, that’s a nice boot.” She is The Best.

It is much better now, though still swollen because I haven’t been able to really rest it much yet what with life being what it is. I’m hoping they’ll be a chance to rest it a bit in the coming weeks and I’ll be back to my normal self because it is KILLING me to be missing the last of the warm weather and not to be out frolicking in Autumn. I’m supposed to be having goodbye picnics for the ducks with a 2 year old, darn it! (I actually had to switch from desktop to laptop midway through writing this post because my foot was hurting from not being elevated so I guess there’s still a way to go yet. Boo.)

Anyway, last time I went on vacation, I didn’t expect to get anything done writing or work wise but then surprised myself by writing a TON over vacation, including the draft of two children’s books. This time, my expectations were slightly raised and I figured I’d get at least some writing done but, it was not to be. I would feel bad about that but… it’s just impossible. I didn’t go on vacation to work, I went to spend time with my family and I got to do tons of that so it was perfect from that standpoint. But the word count for September will be rather low as a result…

But the two days I did work, this was my view…

It was like working in a little jazz cafe that I had all to myself! Nothing to complain about there!