It was quite the day in my little household. I wish I could say I fabricated the bullet points below, kinda like that silly game they used to play on a local morning radio show – pick which one of these four statements is actually UNtrue to win two tickets to obscure eatery #473 – but alas, these are all true.
- Amy regressed to pooping in her underwear. Twice. And I expect she’s not finished yet. Having her sit on her potty seat elicits very specific screams of horror, but no, um, product. Fun times.
- Claire, frustrated with her sisters while attempting to wrap presents for me (I take every opportunity to indenture my children, and don’t you forget it) this afternoon, leaned over and let the wad of gum in her mouth drop into her hair. She was thrilled, as is obvious in the picture below.
Ed. note: [should this be another bulleted mishap of the day?] It would seem the picture I took of Claire with the gum in her hair either doesn’t exist or isn’t accessible at this time. Ain’t technology grand?
- My potassium levels remain dangerously low. This little discovery was made last Thursday; I’ll spare you the lurid details of that particular medical excursion. At that time (last Thursday), I ended up having potassium and magnesium intravenous infusions to rectify this problem, and I am now taking these huge horse-pill-sized potassium pills twice daily. All this supposedly bio-available K has done little to raise my overall potassium level. Apparently whatever is causing this serious deficiency is either completely unfazed by modern medicine’s attempt to band-aid it, or it has proverbially flipped me the bird by going into overdrive to improperly process all the additional K. Back to the doc tomorrow for another needle stick, to see if things are improving, or what other diagostics could be utilized to **gasp** actually uncover the root cause of this possibly fatal problem. I know how anti-Western medicine that particular pursuit is, but occasionally even we Americans must admit that we do not have a bandage big enough to cover things, call “Uncle,” and determine the underlying mechanism that has orchestrated the illness.
My new symptom is lower back pain that comes and goes that doesn’t appear to be, um, female related. I’m trying not to obsess, but I’m not being very successful. I could barely sleep at all last night, and if you know me at all, you are fully cognizant that sleeping is one of my all-time favorite activities. I’m not sure what haunting thought scares the crap out of me more: having my children grow up without my love, wit, and unique cynical view of the world (not to mention other parental qualities too numerous to list), OR having anyone see the disaster that is my basement before I finally get around to purging 20 years of useless paperwork, clothes I outgrew when I was about 33, and close to fifty poems, essays, and novellas in various states of completion.
- A dear friend is getting divorced. A very, VERY dear friend, someone who is as much family to me as anyone possibly could be. This move is the right one for her, and I firmly support this and any other choices she makes. But just because it’s right doesn’t mean it’s easy. Flashbacks to the painful effects of divorce in my own life (via my husband’s first marriage) continue to blast me as I think of what she, her soon-to-be ex, and their children will endure. Luckily, I can be mostly optimistic for her when we chat, and when my cheeriness falters, hers automatically kicks in.
- Claire and Kate are home with me now for 12 days. Wait, we’ve already endured one day together. So that means that eleven are left. That’s roughly the equivalent of 265 hours, not counting the five hours to complete this current day (it’s about 7 p.m. as I write this). Gotta keep reminding myself: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Right??
If you’ve made it all the way through this list, I applaud you. (I barely made it through, and it’s mine!) I can only hope that you’ve taken from my abysmal state of affairs that while most other middle-class mothers in America have it better than I, few of them can document their day so thoroughly or so eloquently.
With that, I’m off to bake some more cookies. I like the dough better than the cookies, however, so how much of a finished product I end up with is very much up for debate. I’ll let you know the outcome tomorrow.
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