Best Of Times, Worst Of Times

Today was one of those days. A day when you question why you had children – or at least are having them in rapid-fire succession. A day when you wonder what on earth you would do without them. We’ll start with the worst of times (with the understanding that things will only get better)…

Lately, I’ve really been feeling pregnant. Until a few days ago, I was doing great. I was Wonder Woman. Or at least a smarter version of Amelia Bedilia. I was working this pregnancy. And then I got sick. Again. Nothing new for this pregnancy, but for some reason this bug really got me down. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had variations of the same headache for two weeks now. As I bent down for the hundredth time to fetch whatever-it-was off the ground today, my head felt – I kid you not – like it was going to explode. Oh, the pressure! And nary a nap to be had. The kids weren’t even that bad today. But by the time Alexander got home, it was the worst of times.

He must have sensed my state of distress (due largely to the fact that I informed him of it), because he took the kids outside to play in their sand box while I fixed dinner. You may be thinking: she still had to fix dinner?! But really, that was not bad. The alternative would have been for me to go upstairs and lie down while Alexander fixed dinner (which he suggested several times). The problem with this approach is no one would now be occupying the kids. Lij would pull up a chair and “help.” This would be mildly annoying to Alexander, but would keep Lij occupied. Dylan on the other hand, would throw himself repeatedly against the kitchen cabinets, sobbing hysterically until someone condescended to pick him up. My prone position respite in the bedroom would therefore have been punctuated by wild screaming. This would have done nothing for my headache. And in a weird bit of pregnancy trivia would actually have morphed, upon entering my ears, into the most violent heartburn imaginable. And so yes, I fixed dinner. And it was not that bad.

The best of times came during dinner. Dylan demonstrated a dizzying display of head wagging – neither up/down nor side to side but a strange combination of the two. Like a fast-forwarded version of the warm-up stretches on an exercise video. And Lij, miracle of miracles, ate his whole dinner (minus any visible vegetables – to accomplish that would have been a little too parting-of-the-Red-Sea-esque for the dinner table). The evening ended with a mostly peaceful reading of several bedtime stories and a successful tuck-in session. Not figure skating tonight.

This freed up my evening to tell you lucky people about my day – warts and all. It also gave me time to re-format a whole slew of pictures that will be my sister’s birthday present if I ever get the size right and upload them onto the photo processing site. In the meantime, Happy Birthday, Little Sis. Have a fabulous time in the Big Apple!