Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Technically, the day started at 3 something, when my one-year-old cried; I couldn’t give her ibuprofen, OR milk, and she wouldn’t settle, so she thrashed around in bed with me until almost 5, when I woke up enough to see that she was asleep and put her back in her bed.  (By the way, I did NOT bring my other three into bed with me, but this one is my worst sleeper, AND she shares a room, AND I just need sleep more than I did when I was younger.)  I got up again at 5:40-ish, brushed my teeth and got dressed, and then changed that same girlie’s diaper and clothes.  We got to the hospital for her tubes at 6:15-ish, and she won over everyone else in the waiting area AND the prep area before getting taken back herself.  Thankfully, everything seemed to go smoothly, and so we were home in time to drop something off at Daddy’s work and pick my 3-year-old up from preschool.  (Smoothly doesn’t mean that she was not highly offended at the thought of juice instead of milk in her bottle.)

My uncle came by to discuss our bathtub project after lunch, and then my second got home from school, and then I picked up my oldest from her piano lesson and took her to a doctor’s appointment.  My amazing friend Britt–who was in charge of her five kids as well as my three younger ones for an hour and a half–was holding my sleeping one-year-old when we got home, and yet she STILL supervised the crew for enough longer that I fit in my 20-odd minutes on the treadmill.  (Did I mention that she also has a one-year-old?  True, she was asleep most of the time, but still.)  By the time we got the kids in bed, accepted my nephew’s girlfriend’s keys (she’s parking her car here for a couple of weeks), and sat down to do our post-children stuff–whew. Quite the day.

Here’s the thing–it was worth it.  Both doctors’ appointments went well, and I have amazing friends and family who helped pick up the slack.  We are blessed.

All the same, I’m not at all sorry that the day is over!

Today at the library the woman behind the desk told me that their circulation has increased in the past month, and she thinks it’s because of me.  (Apparently, it’s quite the self-esteem booster when they pass another branch, so fear not–this is a good thing.)  It’s possible this is because she sees me lug one stack of books at a time up to checkout, usually making four trips altogether (one per card).  It’s also possible that she offered to put a book back on hold for me when I didn’t have space on my husband’s card for it.  (Zoom! zoom!:  sounds of things that go in the city will be waiting for me next week.)

Just doing my part to support my community.

I didn’t even think of posting last night, which tells you how distracted I’ve been.  What can I say?  I’ve got family in town, my one-year-old had an appointment with an ENT this morning (she gets tubes on Friday), it was General Conference weekend, and today is my hubby’s birthday.  I thought about posting 41 things I love about him, but that felt like a longer undertaking than my tired brain could handle.  His lucky number is 4, however, and so here are four reasons why I love him more now than I did when I married him:

1.  He is the most gentle splinter-remover on the planet.  Seriously.
2.  He is an incredibly patient Dad.
3.  He just finished building me a new computer–Hallelujah!
4.  Even though he’s a far better pianist than I am, he notices that I’m improving and makes me feel good about the progress I make.

Happy Birthday to him!

Today I went to the podiatrist and had a bump cut out of my foot, more or less.  We’ve been working on this for a while; he’s scraped it down, and scraped it down, and used the stuff they use on warts, and it keeps coming back.  (When I say “it”, by the way, I mean “it”.  He can tell me all kinds of things it isn’t–not a wart, not this sort of cyst, not that sort of cyst, not a tumor, not a corn, etc.–but he can’t tell me exactly what it IS.  According to him, this happens more than you’d think.)  Today he actually numbed it and used something scalpel-ish to dig out the core, leaving a neat little cone-shaped hole in my foot surrounded by the lovely shade of iodine.  He told me the numbness would last 4-6 hours, gave me some ibuprofen (the 800 mg kind) and some directions for bandaging it, and sent me home.

You know how the dentist always warns you not to chew on your lip when it’s numb?  I’ve never done that.  Walking around while my foot was numb as if nothing had happened, however, seems to have been a poor choice in a similar sort of way–a poor choice compounded by me choosing an “easy dinner” that involved no prep beforehand BUT trip after trip after trip to the griddle to flip the pancakes.  When it started to hurt and I finally sat down to look at the bandage, it had bled through my sock quite noticeably.

Ooops.

Thankfully, tomorrow is my church’s General Conference, which means we get to listen to messages from our leaders on TV (if you live close enough to Utah) or online (if you don’t).  It’s an inspiring weekend full of counsel that always blesses my life when I follow it; it also doesn’t require me to wear church shoes or walk around, which is apparently going to be a good thing this time.

If you have an interest in what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is really about, go to lds.org and have a listen–tomorrow’s morning session starts at 10 am Mountain Daylight Time.  (And if you should ever happen to have your foot numbed, be careful how much you walk on it until the numbness wears off.)