So NOT Cool
This is "light mix turning into rain by rush hour":
The roads are covered with snow. Roads are closed due to accidents. It will probably take Mr. BBM three hours to get home. I almost fell on my butt when I had to retrieve Big I from school because I can’t fit boots over my stupid immobilizing brace and it was slippery out there. It’s rush hour and the snow is coming down like crazy. So not COOL!
Oh, almost forgot to mention that when I got in the car to go get Big I, I attempted to clear off the windows without having to walk around with the scraper. I lowered the windows, but the stupid automatic thing on my driver side window brought the window the entire way down which brought a big old pile of snow right into my lap. Also NOT cool. Actually quite cool as my heated seat quickly melted the snow onto my pants. GRR.
Here’s another thing that’s not cool. This is my leg:
I stood in front of the mirror the other day in my underwear and could not believe the difference in my legs. The difference is just ridiculous. It’s not at all unlike that chicken leg. I think it’s a cruel joke for women who have ACL surgery. As women, we always carry more weight on the upper thigh/butt area. If ACL surgery is going to take away my muscle, at the VERY LEAST, it could also take away some of the upper thigh/butt area. Just call me KFC BBM because that’s what I look like. It is so not fair, and SO NOT COOL!
Here’s yet one more thing that’s not cool. Mr. BBM and I bought our new exercise bike primarily for me and my rehabilitation. On the first night we had it, I was already hurting from PT so I didn’t take a turn on the bike. Mr. BBM spent the whole evening on the thing.
The next day, I went to ride the bike before my shower. The seat was so insanely high that I could barely get on the thing. Once I did, it only took a second to realize I was NEVER going to be able to make this work. I jumped off the bike onto my good leg and tried to adjust the seat.
SWEAT.
FRUSTRATION.
SCREAMING.
SWEARING.
And a phone call. . . Mr. BBM answers his work phone.
"What the hell are you trying to prove? (Mr. BBM tries to inquire why I’m so upset but I continue. . .) No seriously, what are you trying to prove? I just spent the past 10 minutes trying to adjust the seat that SOMEONE screwed on so ridiculously tight that I will NEVER be able to move it. I can’t ride the bike, and who did we buy this bike for? Me, right? ME! It’s just like when you screw the cap on the bottle of soda too tight that I can’t open it. Are you trying to prevent me from drinking soda? Are you trying to prevent me from riding the bike? Just as you show common courtesty in lowering the toilet seat, do a girl a favor and lower the bike seat when you’re done, especially if you are going to be intent on proving you are Hercules."
So
NOT
COOL!
Human Volcano Eruption
9:00 a.m. "I vant milk mommy." (Mommy gets her milk.)
9:05 a.m. "I vant ‘ornange’ juice mommy."
9:05:01 a.m. "Lil C, I just gave you milk. Drink your milk first. Then you can have orange juice."
9:07 a.m. "I vant choc-it milk MOMMY."
9:07:01 a.m. (Mommy adds chocolate powder to milk.)
9:08 a.m. "I vant draw-bewwie milk MOMMY!"
9:08:01 a.m. "Lil C, please drink your chocolate milk first. You can’t have three drinks. Mommy is TRYING to make your breakfast."
9:09 a.m. "I vant egg toast."
9:09:01 a.m. "That’s what I’m making you Lil C. It will be ready in a minute."
9:10 a.m. "I VANT EGG TOAST MOMMMEEEEE!" (Repeat at 10 second intervals.)
9:11 a.m. "I VANT EGG TOAST MOMMEEEEEEEEEEEE!" (Mommy tries to keep brain from erupting with frustration. Mommy starts feeling like a chef at a 5-star restaurant, under extreme pressure to get things done right and get things done NOW!)
9:12 a.m. (Eggs and toast are served to Lil C.)
9:12:01 a.m. "Don’t vant egg toast MOMMEEEEE!"
9:12:02 a.m. "Tough Lil C. That’s what we’re having."
9:12:02-9:15 a.m. (Lil C eats her toast and then climbs out of her chair telling me she is "all done."
9:20 a.m. (Lil C crawls back up in her chair.) "VANT EGG TOAST MOMMEEEE." (Proceeds to eat ice cold eggs. Yeech.)
This is pretty much how every meal goes lately with my downright pain in the heiney agreeable little two-year old. I was on the phone with a friend while making breakfast and shuffling beverages; and I can honestly tell you that I started to feel like my head was going to explode. Lil C is high maintenance and SO demanding right now. She’s also fickle, in case you couldn’t tell.
As a Mommy who is still walking around in an immobilizer brace and is still having some discomfort when I overwork my knee, I choose my battles wisely. It’s not uncommon for Lil C to have three drinks at a time. Some would say I’m spoiling her; I say I’m insuring that I don’t have to get her another drink five minutes from now. Three should last her a while.
The demands of a two-year old are bad enough when you’re completely healthy and mobile. When you’re walking like a peg-like pirate and negotiating stairs 20,000 times a day, it’s downright exhausting.
I am also completely stressed out today for another reason. My aunt was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is undergoing a mastectomy today. Only four weeks out from much more minor surgery, I feel like I’m reliving all of those emotions again: the waiting for your name to be called, the changing into a drafty gown, the stick from the IV needle, being wheeled into the OR, the waking up in pain. . .
I can’t get her out of my mind. I feel physically sick just waiting for news, and dealing with a high maintenance little person is not distracting me. It’s only making it worse. Is it just me or are children 10 times more demanding and impossible when they know you’re already stressed out?
Here’s hoping Mount BBM can avoid blowing her top today. My plan is to keep Lil C well hydrated with a different drink stationed at every table in five foot intervals. I am hoping this plan of action will help us both avoid an "eruption" of catastrophic proportions today.
FAQ
What style of karate do you do?
I train in Okinawan Kenpo and Kobudo of the Heilman, Odo, Nakamura lineage. Kenpo is the open hand karate and kobudo is weapons. So far, I’ve trained with nunchaku, tunfa, bo, sai, nintai bo, eku bo, tekkos and kama.
Why did you call your site “Black Belt Mama” when you were not yet a black belt?
Some people really get their gi all in a bunch about this issue. Personally I think it’s ridiculous. I wasn’t pretending to be a black belt. In fact, I was quite up front about the fact that I was a white, yellow, green, and then brown belt before finally reaching Shodan. I have always listed my current rank/kyu very prominently on the site. A quick read of any of my posts would tell you that I was training for my black belt. It wouldn’t have made very much sense to call myself “Green Belt Mama” which is what I was when I started, or even “Brown Belt Mama” since those ranks were never where I planned on staying. My blog is about my journey to Shodan and beyond, so that’s why the name is what it is. If it bothers you that much, you should probably just leave my site and forget you ever saw it. If my instructors and the head of my style know about it and don’t mind it, then seriously, why should you? You feel pretty silly now, don’t you? Yeah? As well you should.
I don’t know you and I don’t read your blog; but will you link to my site about tigers who eat aloe plants while getting pedicures?
No. I get tons of requests daily to link to other people. I link to sites that I like to read or that I think my readers will find interesting and/or useful. If you’re not on my blogroll now, it doesn’t mean you won’t be in the future. The best way to get me to link to you is to visit, comment, and make me notice you. There are a lot of blogs out there. I work 14 part time jobs which equals like four full time jobs so I don’t regularly go cruising around the internet looking for new reading material.
I also think it’s kind of strange when people email me and put me on the spot by asking me to link to them. I don’t ever do that. If people want to link to me, they will. It’s as simple as that. Oh, and if you do write me and ask me to link to you and I don’t want to, your email went to my spam folder I think. Yeah, that’s it. If I spent my entire day responding to emails, I wouldn’t have any time to blog and then you wouldn’t want me to link to you anyway right?
Do you mind if I link to you?
Not at all. Feel free to link to my site if you have my best interests at heart. You can even use this handy button:
All I ask is that you don’t steal my posts as your own content or to better your search engine ranking. That really irritates me. Linking with reckless abandon by legitimate sites is welcome.
Please don’t email me and ask me if I mind if you link to me with a thinly guised attempt to get me to link to your site. If you want to email me and tell me you like the site and are linking to me. . . great! However, nothing is more annoying than those standard emails that say how much you love my site about “X,” that’s not even filled in, and then you go on to ask me to link to your site about monkey bandanas or something. Not interested.
Can I reprint one of your posts?
This highly depends on who you are and how you’ll use my material. You have to ask me prior to doing so, promise you’ll include a link back to the original content, do 5000 jumping jacks, and then I’ll let you know. I go after people who steal my stuff with vigor. Don’t be one of them.
Can I reprint one of your photos?
No. All photography used on this site is copyrighted. You don’t have permission to use a picture of mine unless you have my written permission to do so.
I don’t know you at all; but will you give me your phone number or IM name so that we can talk?
Anything you need to say to me, you can do so via email, unless of course you want to publish my book, book me on Oprah, or something equally awesome. Then, once I’m sure you’re not a psycho-serial killer, I’ll call you. There is nothing quite as creepy as a 20 something year old guy from half way around the world who emails and bugs me non-stop about giving out my phone number. If you’re trying to pick up a girl who lives a gazillion miles from you, and happens to be married with kids, go join eharmony or something. While you’re at it, you should probably get a life.
I’d like to run ads on your site and pay you for them. Can I contact you?
If you’d like to pay me to run an ad on my site, I’d be happy to hear you out. I have just a couple rules: 1. You can’t pay me with peanuts or ice cream cones, 2. Your product/ad has to be acceptable to my standards, 3. It has to be worth my while. Shoot me an email and we’ll see what happens.
Are you interested in paid writing jobs?
Yes I am! I love to write and getting paid to do it sounds like heaven. However, I absolutely will not sacrifice my own content on my site. If you’d like me to write something on your site, I’m happy to do it. I’m not interested in being paid to write about cat litter or sofa cushions on my site though. Sort of wrecks my credibility, don’t you think? I’m not really into the whole voluntary writing so that your site can benefit from traffic I might send to you either. See the question above, number three to be exact.
Do you have a question that’s not answered here? Feel free to email me at bbm at blackbeltmama dot com and I’ll see what I can do to ease your curiosity.
Week 4 Torture Update
Pain wears you down and out. Physically you’re spent; mentally, you’re just completely gone. I am exhausted from physical therapy today.
Here’s the knee before surgery and four weeks and one day post-op. Looking at this picture, I can actually see the beginning of some minimal muscle tone in the thigh. It’s about time! (No, it doesn’t take much in the form of improvement to make an ACL reconstruction rehab patient feel happy.)
I don’t expect it to feel good, but I never anticipated wanting a piece of wood to bite down on during such a big portion of it. My flexion was at 121 degrees before my PT decided he was going to stretch me a bit. With me on my stomach, he pushed down on the back of my knee (since I’m having posterior knee pain probably due to a knee capsule that needs some stretching) and pushed my heel towards my butt.
It’s excruciating. He takes it to the point where you’re going to go through the roof and then he pushes it a little more. I feel like my knee is going to explode or snap completely off the rest of my body. Today I found myself burying my head in the pillows trying not to scream. It got worse when my PT sat down and put my foot over his shoulder and used his whole body to lean in towards my body, forcing my knee to close the distance to my butt.
I realized I was holding my breath so I asked him to just give me a second to "go to my special place" and that’s just where I went. With Lil C, I got through bad contractions by going here:
I spent a good deal of time at the beach today. It hurt too badly. I just couldn’t stay there in that PT room. When all the stretching was done, my PT measured my flexion at 125 degrees. Something tells me that I’m going to have to fight for every degree from here on out. It’s ridiculously hard and challenging. I’ve been working on flexion at home, but I have been taking it to the point that it hurts, not beyond. I need to push it further and it’s a difficult thing to do to yourself when you know it kills.
While looking at my incision scars, I commented that it still feels like I have marbles under my skin, despite me torturing myself every night with cocoa butter pressure and massage. "How hard are you rubbing the incisions?" he asked me, as he began to demonstrate the appropriate amount of pressure. Judging from my subsequent squirming, it was quite clear that I am not pressing down hard enough. I really am going to have a drink the next time I do this to myself.
This was all discouraging, annoying stuff. There was some good news in the form of using the leg press for the first time with 30 lbs., riding the bike for 10 minutes, and getting about five more exercises including a prone stretch to aid with my extension, more quad building, and additional leg lifts. I swear I’ll be spending six hours a day doing my exercises now. As the mother of an ornery two-year old, I have no idea when that’s going to happen.
This might help though. I give you the official BBM torture device:
Tonight, we bought a brand new exercise bike to help with my rehabilitation. Getting on that bike every day is going to make a big difference. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway, in the form of a new mantra: "This bike is going to help me. . . This bike is going to help me. . . This bike is going to help me. . ."
My goal is to torture myself enough at home this week that my PT doesn’t have to do it for me any more. Something tells me this is wishful thinking.
***The latest reviews are up at The BBM Review and more will be appearing soon! Check out my new favorite book and some karate training bags.
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