What's up with the bananas?
I've been out of sorts lately. For the past four months, really. January went really well, but then February sort of knocked me around a bit. Got back on my feet in time to leave town for ten days and returned home just in time to undergo a Nasal Septoplasty with Turbinate Reduction. Oooh, la la! It almost sounds like a spa treatment, but it's just a fancy way of saying I got my extremely deviated septum repaired and had some on the turbinates inside my nose scooped out so I would have more room to get air to my newly functional septum. It's been almost three weeks since the surgery and, while I'm still a little tender in the general nose region, things are healing up nicely and I can actually breathe through both sides of my nose. It's a refreshing change from the first however many years of my life.
The challenging part is not doing more than I'm allowed. Argh! For the first two weeks, I was ordered not to lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. This was no problem the first week, because I had no interest in doing anything. The second week, however, I discovered the "Mama Beeeg Hugs" the Biggest Girl demands all day are just as important to me as they are to her. I had to sit down to give her a hug, rather than just picking her up. Oh, and diaper changes! Have you ever tried changing a nearly two-year old on the floor? It's like wrestling a small greased pig whose main objective is to get poop on you (and your rug). Fortunately, I didn't have to do a lot of toddler wrestling because I actually asked for (and accepted) help. This is just as challenging for me as not lifting. I like to think I can do this on my own, but ooooh no. No, I needed help. And I let people (namely my mom and dad) help me this time around. The Biggest Girl got to spend some serious quality time with her grandparents and I got to rest, so it worked out well. Plus, there's just no way I'm going to risk messing up my nose because I have absolutely no interest in going through this recovery process again.
So, here we are. Almost three weeks later. I still can't lift as much as I'd like, squatting and leaning over are still precarious activities, and, all at once, I'm feeling like I lost my bearings. Coming off the victory of successfully traveling across the US, you'd think I'd be in Badass mode, but I'm not. Not yet, anyway. I'm feeling a little frail and under-qualified. Even running the simplest of errands is suddenly more of a challenge. And the list of things we need to do right now--both around the house and in the yard--reads more like a list of things I'm not allowed to do. I want to be able to do this on my own, but right now I also desperately want my mommy.
Here's the point, I guess: It comes and goes. As soon as I feel like I've figured this whole mommy thing out, everything changes. More and more, I feel myself pulled further and further away from the fantasy of competence and into the reality of gracelessly stumbling through my days, scrambling just to keep up with the day-to-day tasks associated with a toddler and household, never mind being a wife or attempting adult converstation without feeling like a complete buffoon. I could cry, but I can't really, because it would make my nose hurt. Instead, I get the dishes done and wait to vacuum. I wash the diapers and let the rest of the laundry go. I sit down to read about the ABC's and I don't sweat the fact that the Biggest Girl refuses to change out of her pajamas before noon. In the end, I remind myself once again, she's the most important thing I've got going. It would be nice to have a squeaky clean, shiny bauble of a home, but I'd rather have a happy baby and a smile on my own face. Maybe I'll get the hang of it all one day. In the meantime, I will remain belligerently optimistic. One day, I'll get this. And the next day it will all change. And through it all, I will always be a little bit of fruit on the bottom and hope on top.
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