My New Nickname

Last night I put Jack to bed, and then called BJ.  I went into a the front room of the B&B to talk to him.  This B&B has lots of different levels - you go up three stairs here, down six there...  All weekend long I was telling Jack to "go down safely."  He's just learning to go backwards down stairs, and I was sure that he was going to tumble down and bust his head before we left.

After I talked to BJ, on the way down the six stairs to the scrapbooking room, the slipper socks I was wearing decided to be true to their name, and I fell.  Hard.

Since the staircase is behind a half-wall, all the girls in the scrapbooking room saw was this:

...and all they heard was a thud, and then silence, because I was trying SO hard not to cuss or cry, that I didn't make a sound.  They thought I'd knocked myself out.

I did some Lamaze breathing.  It's amazing how often that comes in handy.  It works almost as well as dropping a few F-bombs, and is much more socially acceptable.  The first thing I did when I could open my eyes was check to make sure I didn't break my phone.  I have issues.  My phone is fine.  My behiney, however, is not.

You know how when you hit your head you get a goose egg?  Did you know that you can do that to your butt?  I didn't either, but sure enough last night it looked like I had something the size of a lime under the skin.  Today it's still swollen, but not as badly, only about half a lime.

I am not so bold that I will post an actual picture of my butt on the web, but I will give you an artist's rendition.  I've worked really hard for several hours to get the shape and the color right.  It looks like this:

Do not adjust your monitor.  Most of my left rear end is actually the color of eggplant.  Now that I think about it, that's backwards, but that's what I see when I look in the mirror, so we're just gonna go with it.

Anyway, the egg part isn't bruised.  (There also isn't an actual circle around it, but I can't figure out how to post in three dimensions, so use your imagination for that part.)  Jenny, one of the scrapbookers, told me that when her kids bump their heads, if you put (real, not imitation) vanilla extract on the bump right away, the bruise doesn't come up.  So my cousin Kelly got some vanilla and we tried it.  What the heck, right? And the egg part is where I put the vanilla, so we'll see if the bruise ever comes up.  I almost wish it would, if it would take the swelling down.  I didn't think to coat my whole cheek in vanilla, so maybe the bruise is just coming up where I didn't put it.  We'll find out in a couple of days.  I sat on ice for over an hour, too, so that might have helped.  (Get it?  Karen dubbed me Vanilla Ice.  Word.)  I don't think I'd be able to walk today if I hadn't sat on that ice.  It still really hurts.  (Will it ever stop?  Yo, I don't know...)

You would not believe how uncomfortable the two hour drive home in the car was.  I never knew that my seats were so hard.

And yes, when I told Jack what happened, he thought it was funny.  Word to your mother.