Pretty babies, pretty dress, it's a pretty day outside. I am sucking down a latte trying to caffeinate the gronk out of my system. There's a certain fluffy black and white beasty that thinks it's super fun to smack the blinds on the bedroom window from around 5am until we get up around 7:30. The game gets even better if you try to get up and get her - she runs under the bed! Whee!!!

Munchkin doesn't really count as an RPG.

Which is exactly why I'll actually play it.

I can draw a card and do what it says on it. Despite having once been an actress, I can not pretend to interrogate a four headed demon beast from a far away moon - that has traveled to LA from 5432 through some portal - on the whereabouts of his boss so that my Shadowrun Crew can find him, torture him, kill his legion of 'roided out trolls in full body armour, find out where the magic riddle is so that we may make a clean get-away on our spaceship and make sure to catch the newest Broadway play.

It's not that you can't, Aims. I think you very much can.

I think it's just that you don't want to. And that's perfectly acceptable.

I adore roleplaying. But what's more fun is to DM and hold my players' scrawny little egos in my all-powerful hands.

I miss D&D.

NO lifting my kids for 12 weeks

That is a tough thing to promise. I'm supposed to have foot surgery. The surgeon said he refuses to operate on mothers. Flat out. He says I can promise all day long to stay off the foot for 2 weeks, but it won't happen if you have kids. 12 weeks of no lifting would require a lot of advance planning.

You are on the right track with trying all your options. I hope the physical therapy gives you some relief. So much back ~ma for you.

Munchkin doesn't really count as an RPG.

I know I'm not the only one who had a Homicide-disconnect right then.

What RPG on Homicide? Rocket Propelled Grenade?

Me too. Totally. Picturing a bunch of disappointed hippies in dark glasses waxing existential. I'm FG at that game, yo.

I think it's just that you don't want to.

This very true also. I also don't think I'd be very good.

"So, four headed moon beast...What did you think of Chanel's fall collection this year? Lots of pockets. IS THAT WHERE THE RIDDLE IS! I'll beat you with my steel reinforced stilletto bitch boots!"

Cashmere, Ben was Owen's age (and pretty stout) when I was pregnant with Julia and went into premature labor and had to learn all new ways of doing things. You can retrain yourself (and Owen) to lavoid all lifting of him, at this point in his development. The hardest parts will be breaking your regular habits.

He can climb onto a bed to get his diaper changed. He can climb up into your mini-van. He can climb up into his high chair. He can do stairs. If he wants you to pick him up, he can learn that you have to sit, and he had to climb into your lap, etc.

Liv, of course, is a different matter.