Screw you, latissimus dorsi

Who ever would have known that pulling a back muscle and pinching a major nerve would be so debilitating? As in, completely-out-of-commission, your husband has to re-reschedule his work trip, can't lift your 7-month old son, can't even lift a glass of water, out-of-commission?

It all started Monday. My frantic day. Get everyone up/dressed/out the door by 8:30, get Aves to school, run misc. household errands, pick her up from school, grab lunch, run to ballet, change her into ballet attire, home by 3:30pm. Well since lunch went a little longer than expected, we got to ballet late and as I was rushing to help her into her leotard, the baby started flailing in his car seat... and as I jerked my upper body to grab him....PING. And a pop. And the most excruciating, tingling, stabbing pain ever to have existed in my body.

That is the only/best way I can describe it. Like a massive rubber band was stretched 100 times past its maximun capacity and just exploded. I choked back the tears, asked the other moms to keep an eye on Gav for me, and crawled (literally) into the dance studio office to use their phone. Thank GOD I was able to get in touch with the hubby before he was on the plane to leave for the week, told him what happened, and begged him to re-schedule his flight for the next morning so that I could be seen at the walk-in clinic that night.  I apologized to him profusely, reminding him repeatedly that "I know this is not good timing" but that something was definitely wrong here.

With help to the car, (I couldn't lift the diaper bag/Ava's ballet bag/and obviously not the baby in his car seat), I barely made it home driving with the kiddos. Jeff met us there and about ten minutes later, it was off to the clinic.  Given the amount of pain I was in and that I could barely stand up, I was called in right away.  Nurses came in, took my vitals, and before I knew it everything was a whirlwind of laying me down in the hospital bed, oxygen masks, and "we need you to relax and take some deep breaths for us..."

Completely bewildered I asked "What the heck is going on!? It is my BACK that hurts, why do I need oxygen?!"  The nurses kept answering me with "stay calm and try to breathe."

Next thing I know I am at Radiology for a chest X-ray....what?!  I try explaining to the technician that I must be here for the wrong reason, it is my BACK that is in pain, not my chest.

At least the X-ray tech gave me an answer:  "Your saturation levels were low-- 82 to be exact, which means that you are not getting enough oxygen. We need to make sure everything is okay with your lungs."

So off I go for my second X-ray in 7 days, fully convinced that the radiation is going to kill me.  Swell.

Back upstairs to see the Dr., who reports that my lungs look fine but that my oxygen levels are still low. He asks me if I feel shortness of breath and I tell him yes, since the muscle spasms are so bad, I am unable to take a deep breath.  He writes me perscriptions for a muscle relaxer and a heavy-duty pain med and tells me that I will be "as good as dead" to my kids while on this stuff and to enlist full-time help until Friday.

I chuckle to myself, and tell Doc that of all weeks for this to have occurred, the hubby needs to be on a plane tomorrow for DC for the remainder of the week. Doc responds with: 

"Listen, I get it- the whole, he's the breadwinner, you stay home with the kids, dynamic. Believe me, I get it. And although this may not be classified as a life-threatening emergency, it is definitely a medical crisis. You CANNOT be home alone with your kiddos while on these meds, and unfortunately you need to be on them religiously to help the pinched nerve and pulled muscles relax and stop spasm-ing...So do what you need to do, but you are going to need to rely heavily on the help of others this week."


Fan-freaking-tastic. Of ALL WEEKS....this can't be happening right now.  I am annoyed, stressed out, and in the most physical agony I've ever been in, (next to chidbirth).

Once home, Jeff & I decide to enlist help for Tuesday at least and call my Mom who agrees to call in sick the next day to help us out. (Thank you Mom). Jeff leaves at 4am for a flight out that morning, and my Mom mans the fort ALL DAY with both kids. I am impressed as I listen to their day full of laughter and- no tears (?!)- from my bedroom.  She stays until 11pm, and Jeff gets home around midnight.

When Jeff walks in the door he is tired beyond any amount of exhaustion humanly possible, since he has been up for 21 hours straight at this point, and he still has a few hours of work to catch up on.  Off to bed I go with the help of my friends, muscle relaxer and Vicodin, and before I know it, morning has come and another day of agony for my back. (this is confirmed as I try and sit up).  Jeff gets Ava to school (an hour late--oops) and takes the baby to the office with him for a couple of hours to get a few things done. The remainder of the day, I spend in bed and off to another Dr. appointment to make sure that there is nothing more that can be done.  I implore him- "Is there anything other than these mind-altering medications that I can use, so that my husband doesn't have to take more time off??"

He regretfully tells me that, unfortunately, these are the only things that will help the spasms to subside and that I need to take them religiously in order to help alleviate the pain.   He closes our session with the obligatory,

 "...and remember, do not operate heavy machinery, use sharp knives, drive, or be alone with  your kids while on this stuff, okay?"

I ponder a smart-ass response to the effect of, "Well, there goes my shot at winning the zucchini-chopping contest while driving a backhoe with my daughter later on today..."

But the muscle relaxer that I just took an hour ago has suddenly made me hazy & sluggish again, and he is lucky that I am able to mutter a dopey "Uhhh-huh."

And so here I sit typing this, heating pad at full-throttle on my back and my third round of meds (hopefully) kicking in soon....a very stressed out hubby worried about work...and a house that's been turned upside-down in a matter of 48 hours.

In conclusion...life could definitely be better right now. Much better.

How to get an uptight businessman to spit out his coffee:

After picking Aves up from school today, we made a quick pit-stop at the local bagel shop because she wanted a bagel for lunch.

As we sat munching our delectable bagel sandwiches, (Gav propped up in a high chair devouring cheerios,) I asked Aves about her day at school.

Me: "So, what did you learn about today?"

A: "Lots of things...like...umm, trees- I learned all about the maple tree today!"

Me: "Wow, cool baby! What else?"

A: "Oh! And we learned all about the letter F. I can even draw a little F too now! Just like this." (she draws a big F, then little F, in the air with her cream-cheese covered pointer finger. Adorable.)

Me: "And what was your job today at school?"

A: "I was weather girl. I got to tell everyone that it was cold outside but sunny too."

Me: "Good girl! Sounds like you had a really great day. And what did you have for snack?"

A: (thinking hard about it, looking up, trying to remember...and then exclaims extremely loudly,)  "Oh, I remember! We had graham CRAPPERS. Mommy, they were the BEST crappers I've ever had. Can we get crappers like those and bring them home?"

(businessman sitting at table adjacent to us nearly spits out his coffee all over his laptop and starts laughing to himself)

Me: "Yes, of course we can buy some graham CRAPPERS. They sound delicious!!"

Love the little moments like this!!!


p.s. also, today was the highly anticipated Preschool picture day!!! Here were some of the pics we took at home this morning before heading out the door to school...please note her rockin' new 'do and her picture day outfit that she chose all by herself. Oh, and her new-found obsession with thumbs-upping in every single photo opp. She was very proud  :-)

In conclusion, I can't wait to see how her first school pictures came out, without the assistance of her Momma & a comb. Can't wait!

Dear (Cotton) Undies,

I need to confront you about something, and it probably isn't going to be comfortable for either of us...but it all must be said. So here goes.

What the hell has happened to our relationship since the birth of my children!?!? All of the adorable, frilly, satin-y pairs of you have mysteriously gone missing, now replaced (seemingly permanently) with your very practical, 100% cotton, full coverage "brief" counterparts. Yikes.  I am beyond sick and tired of folding laundry and wondering why on earth Jeff washed a massive, pastel green parachute-- only to soon realize that said parachute is actually not a parachute, but rather a pair of Grannie panties-- my Grannie panties.  (And for the record, and for the first time ever, I completely understand why this nickname was coined...when I look at a stack of my undies these days, it literally looks like to went to my grandmother's house and raided her drawers.)

You and I promised ourselves that the affair would be a short and sweet one, only to last for the post-partum weeks while my c-section scar healed and all of the other gross-ness of labor & delivery subsided.  So why-- 7 months later-- are you still the predominant undies of choice in my drawer?
Is it your patented comfort-flex elastic waistband? The fact that you are much more flattering on my post-baby tummy pouch than a satin thong might be these days?  Have I gone practical in my maternal years, realizing that all the things my mother told me growing up (that cotton lets you "breathe" more, and is better for your lady parts)  are actually true? Or is it, plain and simple, the undeniable, unparalleled comfort of cotton?

Cotton undies, as much as I loved our time together in the beginning, my husband is getting damn tired of seeing you on my butt cheeks, and I can't blame him.  I wouldn't mind getting together with you on occasion- say, the one week a month when womanhood will have me requiring your assistance.  But this every day thing is beyond ludicrous. I'm putting my foot down and reclaiming some of my saucy, womanly pride.  All it'll take is a Secret trip to my friend Victoria's, and a few dollars worth of some new racy, sensual, "I wasn't made with an 82-year-old woman in mind" undies. (no offense.)

Underoos of cotton, thanks for listening to me. I truly do hope that we can move forward from here, and still be friends. (sorry to be so cliche.)  Thank you for all of your hard work and dedication over the past several months. You were dependable, breathable, and always comfortable when I needed you to be, and there will always remain a place for you in my heart. (and on my bum.)

Warmest wishes for a pleasant stay for you at the back of the underwear drawer,

You can file this one under: Things that make me go 'Hmmmm'

This morning, as I sat rocking my precious baby boy in his room (per our usual pre-nap ritual,) the scene was typical for any other morning around this time: Gav & I snuggled together in the glider in the corner, shades drawn, the only sounds the soft hum of his humidifier, and his sleepy little yawns. This is usually the only quiet, intimate time that we get, just the two of us each day, and I feel confident that I spend it well:  examining his tiny fingers with mine, stroking his silky blond hair, caressing his soft, pudgy cheeks, and pleasantly enjoying this bond of mother and son as he drifts off into dreamland on my chest.  The only thing that differentiated today from any other was that it took him a bit longer than usual to fall asleep, since his nose was still all stuffy from last week's sickness,  and therefore getting comfy proved a bit more difficult.

That said, I spent some of this extra time quietly staring around his room, just looking at everything around us; his adorable froggy-inspired crib, his closet chock-full-o-clothes, the humidifier vapor rising into the air, the letters on his wall, the-



Wait a minute.

Let's go back to that "letters on his wall" part.

My eyes traveled back to the strategically placed letters hanging above his changing table:

They'd been hanging there since well before his birth, but today, something jumped out at me.  Maybe it's the fact that I'm a writer and am always looking at and analyzing letters and words more so than the average Joe. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. Maybe it's the tail end of this virus that has all but knocked me out cold-- But for some reason, a strange thing hit me today as I stared long and hard at my son's name on the wall....

If you rearrange the letters in just the right way, my strong, masculine son's name

g    a    v    i    n   

has the ability to become...



v    a    g    i    n .




Now I don't even know if this word exists, but it seems like the perfect candidate for the Frenchman's (or, Borat's) version of "vagina," especially if you put the stress on the "i" (like "vah-JEEN")

How did I not ever realize that my little boy's name is an anagram for female genitalia?!  Whoops. Sorry about that, little Gav.... let's just hope that:

1. your Momma is the only one crazy enough to have noticed this,
2. you never, ever have a "find anagrams of your first name!" assignment in elementary school, and
3. in High School, your lacrosse buddies don't make this realization. Ever. 

Beethoven may have been a musical prodigy....

But he sure wasn't this chock-full-o-CUTENESS!!!

We like to have fun around here. And lots of times in our household, the equation is pretty simple:

Fun = Anything Musical. 

This was the completely uninhibited musical chaos bliss that occurred in our living room today, thanks to Daddy digging out his dusty old (circa 1996) high-school keyboard from the basement and letting the kiddos go crazy.

(And in case you are wondering, the answer is YES, it absolutely was as awesome as it appears  :-)

(*Please contact myself or Jeff if interested in booking these two for your private function...they are available for any sort of gig, especially night club piano entertainment, provided that they are home & in jammies by 7pm. (7:30 on weekends.) They charge a flat fee of 2 ice cream cones and a trip to Build-a-Bear.)

Tonight's dinnertime conversation with little lady

Aves: "Momma, wouldn't it be SO COOL if we had a massive swing-set out in the yard...like bigger than the one out there now?"

Me: "I guess so, but what would make a bigger one better?"

A: "Because it would have things like a super-duper speed racer twirly whirly yellow slide...and a club house and you and me could be the ONLY ones allowed and we could sing songs in it like this: 'No boys a-looooo-oowed, No boys a-looooo-oowed' and so no boys could be there, and we could do thing like paint our nails up there, and eat popcorn and cotton candy and watch Barbie movies with NO drooly brothers or stinky Daddies to worry about!"

Me: "Wow, that sounds-"

A: "Momma I'm not done telling you all about it! It would also have a magical giant rainbow trampoline...and you would jump so high, like WAY high that you would flip over and bounce on your bum ALL the way up to the moon!!!!"

Me: "To the moon?!"

A: (eyes wide open and panting for breath at this point) "Yes Mommy to the MOON! All the way up there!! And you could even wish on shooting stars on the way up there!!!!" (excitedly get off her chair to use full-body gestures for the remainder of story)

Me: "And when we got to the moon, what would we do?!"

A: "LOTS OF THINGS!!! Like jumping jacks, and bake cookies, and play with our American Girl dolls!! And then....we would jump like this and ZOOOOM back down to the rainbow trampoline and it would be the most funnest day of our ENTIRE lives!!!!!!!!!!!!"


Dear Aves, Thank you so much for keeping me a kid at heart via our dinnertime conversations. I love seeing the magic & fascination of the world through your incredibly imaginative eyes...you certainly march to the beat of your own little drum, and in doing so you never fail to bring a chuckle to my lips and a smile to my heart.... (& I can't wait for that day when we bounce to the moon together!)        Love you billions, Momma

There must have been some magic in that old silk hat....

Ahhhh, a little girl-on-the-mend and her Frosty. Her proud, rosy-cheeked smile is at least something redeeming about the sick, miserable, cold New England winter that we've endured!