Frumpy Middle-Aged Mom: I broke my foot kung fu fighting

I was demonstrating my prowess in kung fu the other day, trying to break a board with my foot, and hoping to get a cameo role in the next Jackie Chan movie.

Unfortunately, my foot got broken instead of the board.

OK, you're on to me.

That's all a big lie. I couldn't fight a kindergartener and win.

But it sounds a lot better than the truth: I really did break my foot, but I did it by bouncing down some stairs, yakking with my friends instead of paying attention to what I was doing.

Something did get my attention though: The loud snap! when I landed hard on one side of my foot and the bone promptly broke — and I fell down.

I'd never broken a bone before, so at first I wasn't 100 percent sure it was fractured. But a trip to my friendly local orthopedist convinced me it was true, along with the big old cast they put on my foot and leg all the way up to my knee.

The nice guy who put on my cast, Joseph, gave me a choice of several colors for the outer layer: pink, blue, turquoise, kelly green and more. I was still in a daze and couldn't decide — I wasn't sure which color was more slimming to my leg. I finally decided that, as long as it wasn't horizontal stripes, it really didn't matter. Though I picked green, because I thought Curly Girl would like it, plus it's almost St. Patrick's Day.

It's not like anyone's going to look at your big old clunky cast and say, "Gee, she's not supposed to wear that color after Labor Day."

The worst news is that I had to cancel our family vacation to Argentina, which we were planning to take for two weeks in the middle of March. I got cheap plane tickets and spent months planning every second of our trip, now all for naught. And I'm still arguing with Mexicana Airlines about whether they'll charge me huge cancellation fees or not.

The other bad news is that I'm not supposed to walk on the foot for six to eight weeks, because apparently this type of fracture is very hard to heal, and just won't heal if you put weight on it.

Curly Girl is a very avid cook and already adept at preparing simple dishes like mac and cheese, pancakes, scrambled eggs or Hamburger Helper, so she's already made several meals for us, while I lie on the couch and watch trashy TV.

Cheetah Boy's been cleaning up the kitchen with only a small amount of complaining, so I'm really happy that the kidlets are pitching in and helping run the show.

I will soon, however, get really tired of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, so I just ordered this goofy little scooter from eBay. You can put your knee on it and walk/scoot yourself around without having to use crutches or put any weight on your foot.

It looks awesome, and when I get it, I think I'll be able to stand in the kitchen and prepare meals that don't come in a box.