Kneed to know

Gotta say – not a fan of walking with a limp.
I have been doing so for about a week, after I injured my knee doing ... well ... I woke up last week and noticed an intense pain in my knee. I considered my previous activities and how I could have hurt it. My recent physical activity:
1. Lie in bed for about five days with the flu.
2. That is all.
OK, so not the most strenuous calendar.
My wife told me I needed to go to a doctor, mainly because she was tired of me falling to the ground and moaning every few steps. I have had sore knees like most anyone, but this was different, so I conceded I should probably have someone check it out.
When I arrived at the orthopedist’s office, I had to fill out my paperwork. One of the questions asked me how I had treated my injury. I answered “Limping, complaining.” I don’t think they were impressed.
I was sent for X-rays on my knees, which came with the added bonus of getting to take off my pants and don an awesome paper gown. I asked the nurse if I could just pull up my pants leg. She told me no. I asked her if this was just a little game to see how goofy they could make me look. On the second X-ray, would they say, “OK, we’re gonna need you to put on this Cher wig, too.” She admitted nothing, but I am on to her.
When the doctor came in, he told me the X-rays were fine. He asked me what physical activity I had done recently, and I told him about my aggressive bed lying. He did not think that was a common cause of knee injuries.
More than likely, he said, I have a torn meniscus, albeit a minor one. For those of you who are not doctors, a meniscus is part of your knee that, when torn, turns into a large buck knife that stabs the inside of your leg every time you move it.
In some ways, I was a little disappointed that there was nothing hugely obvious to see on the X-ray. I kinda wanted him to come in and say, “Clearly, you have been mauled by wolverines. How are you still alive? This is the most serious knee injury ever. I would like to submit your case to the medical journal ‘I Survived an Unsurvivable Knee Injury, Possibly from Wolverine Attack.’”
The doctor gave me a prescription and some exercises to do. The prescription is, I am told, a steroid, so I expect to lift a car and throw it angrily at someone any day now.
After the first couple of days of taking the medicine and doing the exercises, I did notice an improvement in my knee. And then I found an awesome way of setting back any progress I had made. On day three, my knee was feeling better than it had felt before the wolverine attack. I was making sure that I was treating it gingerly and not putting any undue strain on it. And then the rains came. When I was walking to my car, there was a nice puddle in the parking lot. I could have walked around it. I could have stepped in it and gotten my shoe wet. I could have gone back inside and waited until the rain eased up. No, those are sane responses.
Instead, I went into uber-guy mode. I leaped. Gotta clear the puddle. Somewhere about midjump, my brain said, “Hey, remember how you can hardly walk up stairs right now? And you’re about to land on that leg. Good call, genius.”
And so my leap started to end, with my left leg planting on the asphalt. My knee and my brain had a quick conversation. “Ouch,” my knee said, adding, “I quit.” And so my knee began to buckle, and it appeared I had only two choices: 1) Limp and scream and wail at the pain or 2) fall onto the wet asphalt and scream and wail.
Finding neither of those preferable, I opted for the wildcard option, which was to limp to my car, drive home and complain to my wife. She asked me what happened. I told her I jumped a puddle. She sighed.
So it’s clear that my knee needs some TLC to get better, and I will have to make an effort to ensure that happens. I am tired of limping everywhere and tired of having a hard time getting up stairs and such. (Although this does help my case for installation of a fire pole at home.) Hopefully, this will all be healed up soon. Of course, if it’s not, I can always rely on the time-honored medical tradition of limping. And complaining.

A real chore

So I'm working on a chore list.

My kids are 6 and 9, and my wife and I decided it was time for them to take an active role in the upkeep of the house.

We have always had expectations that our kids would take a part in the household upkeep.

We might as well have had expectations that they would turn into aardvarks because it was as likely to happen.

It's not that my kids don't help. It's that kids don't see a messy house the same way adults do.

For example, when I walk through the house in the evenings, I will often say things such as:

* "Why is there a shoe in the den and another one in the microwave?"

* "Who eats cereal in the bathroom!?!?!?!?"

* "Why are there dinosaurs in the dishwasher?"

So my kids aren't the best housekeepers. But we sat them down the other day and explained to them that we were going to start having chore lists. They expressed their excitement for this by, in unison, saying, "NOOOOO!!!!!"

I told them that we all have to take a part in keeping the house up because we all live here. They responded, "NOOOOO!!!!!"

Not the best cheerleaders for Team House Clean.

I explained to them that taking care of your house showed respect for your house and that everyone in the family played an integral part in making sure that we lived in an environment we could be proud of, one that we wanted to invite others to be a part of. Their blank stares were an inspiration to blank stares everywhere.

My wife saved the moment. "We'll give you an allowance," she said.

Amazingly, they were suddenly on board.

So the first thing to do was to come up with the chores that would comprise the list.

The kids began offering up their suggestions of how they could best be utilized in the new chore list/allowance world they lived in.

Allie said that she would really like to be in charge of the den. "Uh, Allie," I said, "is that because that's the room where the TV is?"

She began a detailed explanation of how, while TV was in fact in that room, that would actually help her clean BETTER.

Parker opted to clean the driveway. On his scooter.

Clearly, my wife and I needed to drive this bus.

We decided that we will come up with a handful of standard to-dos - make beds, put dirty clothes in hamper, get cereal bowl out of bathroom. The other chores would rotate.

The kids asked us what kind of chores these would be.

The first I offered up was rounding up all of the toys each day and making sure they were put in their proper places.

"But what if they're Parker's toys?" Allie asked.

It was at that point that I launched into my well-rehearsed soliloquy about how there was NOTHING downstairs that was mine, yet I clean it up, and how I was pretty sure that I had not worn ANYONE'S Barbie tennis shoes, yet they still find homes, and how I don't recall wearing Star Wars pajamas, yet I put them in the hamper...

And then my wife stepped in, moved me to the side, and, possibly, slipped me some medication.

My wife, who as you can see is the sane parent, explained to the kids that there would be a rotating list of chores that we would all take part in, and some days you may take your brother's shoes upstairs and some days you make take your sister's books upstairs, but in the end, we would all be a better household because we were all working together. I stood by and twitched a little bit.

Hopefully, our chore plan will go smoothly, and the kids will, in no time, feel that they are an important part of keeping a house running.

In the long run, our house and our kids will all be better for it. And maybe we can keep the dinosaurs out of the dishwasher.