The Better Part of Valor...

I fully expected to be spending this afternoon curled into the fetal position and cursing humanity, but I expected it to be because I had just had a rather large needle inserted into my back, rather than because I can't take ibuprofen for another 48 hours prior to the procedure, which has been rescheduled to Friday afternoon due to snow.

That was a really awesome run-on sentennce, by the way.

So the snow?? We have several inches of it. The dog is ecstatic, at least. He runs outside and hurtles his body around the yard in apoplectic leaps and bounds, smashing into the fence as he attempts to navigate the corners on slick paws. It reminds me of the last time I mopped the kitchen floor, when Toby discovered the slick wetness made for perfect kitchen-slalom conditions. I swear that kid's gonna be an X-Games contender some day.

But really, who wants to talk about that when we can laugh at my Lucy-esque pratfalls?

Let's take, for example, my brilliant idea to decorate the house with exterior holiday lights. Oh, it all started out innocently enough -- light nets on the bushes, lights and garlands on a garden arch across the porch. Add a few plastic candy cane lights, some multi-functional blinking snowflakes. I even hung icicle lights along the lower portion of the front roof.

Then came the grand misunderestimation... Conveniently forgetting (or ignoring if you prefer) my well-documented Fear of the Heights and the Death By Falling, I decided I could make it up onto the top of the roof to attach the plastic clips along the edge of the (incredibly high) shingles and hang the rest of the icicles.

I made it exactly two paces onto the roof before the panic attack set in, and I was flat on my belly, drenched in sweat, and cursing fate that my children would be left motherless when the neighbors found me face down in the azaleas. After a few moments of pondering my circumstances, with Toby asleep in his crib and Jack parked in front of The Polar Express, I started the excrutiating process of talking myself down. Mostly this involved a lot of self-flagellation ("You are an exceptionally gifted moron. You do realize you have to get down from here? So c'mon, genius. Baby steps. You can't stay up here all day, you pansy!")

After several excrutiating minutes (spent hugging the roof for dear life and praying to several deities) my foot found the top rung of the ladder and I shimmied my way down. Then, I hung the rest of the icicles on the bottom of the bump out under the upper level of the house... about 4 feet off the ground.

Today it appears that the stress of the recent past has finally caught up with me. I think I might be ready to die. Please send chocolate and morphine. On top of the unmedicated back pain, my stomach finally joined my body's open rebellion with gusto. Either that, or a few of Santa's elves have gone rogue and are making gift bows OUT OF MY INTESTINES.

Did I mention we are also out of diapers? And that Toby is wearing pull-ups that are 2 sizes too big? Because that is going to be completely fantastic when he decides to transact some business.

In summary, my friends, I think it is a very good day to put the Christmas movies on repeat and snuggle with the children between trips to the bathroom and occasional breaks to moan pitifully while rocking in the fetal position.

Happy Thursday!

Tie-eye-eym... Why you punish me?

I'm just checking in, really. Mostly because it will kill 10 minutes that I should actually be spending on household chores.

We were gone all day while I ran around, picking up and dropping off kids and attending various doctor appointments. The short version of the recap is that I am going in on Wednesday morning to have a needle inserted into my spine. I will be injected with steroids - thereby putting the final nail in the coffin of my hopes for a career as a professional athlete. No?

Okay, well that and my total lack of coordination or ability. And the boobs. The boobs pretty much rule out any sort of for-pay contact sport unless we move to Nevada and I change my name to "Ginger" or "Peaches". Also there would probably need to be some sort of traumatic brain injury involved to convince me to go along with that plan. But now this is sounding suspiciously like a Lindsey Lohan movie, and that's just wrong on so many levels.

What were we talking about again?

Oh. Yes. The Big Sharp Thing that will be puncturing my spinal column on Wednesday. Well, the good news is that this has a good chance of alleviating the pain within a short time. It might take more than one injection - which would suck, but would suck substantially less than surgery... which is the next option if this doesn't work.

Also, we won't be able to start trying again for baby #3 for at least 3 months after I am pain free, during which time I am supposed to, like, tone muscles and stuff. To support the weight I will undoubtedly gain with another pregnancy. Also this might just be the very nice Pain Specialist's roundabout way of saying "Lose some baggage Fatso" but I like to think he'd say it to a thinner woman, too. Especially if she also tended to gain upwards of 50 pounds with each pregnancy and give birth to ten pound babies. Then again, if she does all that and is still somehow svelte afterwards I really need to find her and kick her. (If my sister is reading this, I'll give her a reprieve. Because she DOES gain all the weight, AND have huge babies, AND still manages to be a size 3. But I love her anyway, because she is my sister, and also I hope she remembers this when she makes her first million.) (Unlike my other sister, who has probably already made her first million and totally reneged on her promise to buy me a pony.)

So, yeah, stream-of-consciousness rantings aside, finally there is hope in my future. I'm terrified of having the shot, but it's so preferable to the other options at this point that I'm almost disappointed it's not happening tomorrow. At least T's Mama will be there for moral support - as well as to watch the boys and give me a ride home afterwards. But mostly to hold my hand, because T is in Singapore and I'm terrified something bad will happen to me and he'll be on the other side of the planet. Literally - other side of the planet. Sure they have great shopping but what if I suddenly burst into flames?

SO that totally killed about 20 minutes, and now I can go watch Chuck with the delay on the TiVO to skip over the commercials. Let's recap : Shots - bad. Stoppage of the pain - good. Possible paralysis if things go wrong - bad. Possibility that I won't need a metric butt-load of prescription narcotics just to survive the 5-hour flight to Salt Lake City in a few weeks - good.

It's a dead heat, methinks. Hopefully I'll let you know the final verdict after Wednesday.
(Or I'll blink my eyes to dictate the message in Morse Code after it all goes horribly wrong and I end up in a persistent vegetative state.)
(In which case: someone please prop me up in front of the TV and let me watch the rest of my fall television line-up before pulling the plug. You know, just in case.)

Happy Monday!

Will You Light My Candle?

After the supremely somber mood of yesterday's post, I had it in mind to make today's a more lighthearted affair.

I'm sorry to say that I am failing miserably in the attempt. My back has been killing me all day, and it took continual doses of ibuprofen and finally a prescription painkiller to knock it down to "tolerably painful" instead of "Sweet-Niblets-Just-Kill-Me-Now".

The kids and their dad enjoyed a mostly restful day of playing video games, watching the tee vee, and eating pizza. The house is a bit of a disaster, and we didn't actually manage to get the Christmas decorating done as we had planned.

But we'll make tomorrow a Family Night and decorate the tree then. With egg nog and Christmas tunes. And hopefully a much better prognosis for my back, after my doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon.

Until then, dear readers, Big Daddy and I are pouring the cabernet and heading downstairs so he can watch the movie version of Rent. I've seen it once before, and this will be his first time.

Someday? I'll make him take me to New York to see it all live and in person. Until then, this quiet evening at home will do quite nicely.