Yesterday, while rushing down the stairs with baby in arms, I thought I was at the bottom, but – no! – one more step to go! I didn’t land too well – 20 extra pounds of baby really threw me off balance – and the end result is a very badly sprained foot.
For dinner last night, we ordered Curbside to Go from Ruby Tuesdays. When Bill returned with it, I was three rooms away from the dining room. The fastest and least painful way for me to get there was to crawl. I asked Bill to get the baby, but he didn’t need to do so, because the baby was highly amused and happily followed me. So we had a nice parade: me leading on my hands and knees, Pete staggering behind me with a huge grin on his face, and Bill taking up the rear telling me exactly how pitiful I looked.
Perhaps some people might relish the opportunity to put their feet up for a few days. For me, this is torture.
I didn’t mind handing the baby off to Bill for a stinky diaper change. But he and the boys were playing ball in the backyard after dinner, and I had to constantly interrupt him for things like the diaper change, locating Jenny (who wanders into the house just looking for mischief), and similar tasks that I normally handle and he rarely does. He was annoyed, of course, and even though it’s good for him to occasionally experience the drudgery that is my life {please visualize me with my hand on my forehead and my body strewn across a chaise lounge as you read that line}, I honestly don’t feel that he needs this experience, especially since I have no desire to experience the drudgery that is his life.
Besides the urgent tasks like a diaper change that I clearly could hand off to Bill, there are millions of smaller jobs that I do without thinking all day long. What mom walks through a room without seeing and doing one or more minor chores on the way to get or do something else? On the way to the kitchen to refill the sippy cup, most moms would likely spot several toys or books or personal items that needed to be returned to their proper location, maybe a spot on the kitchen counter that needed wiping, a dish or two that needed to be put in the dishwasher, or some miscellaneous items of trash that needed to be put in the garbage bin. Perhaps some dads might see these things too, especially those who might happen to be responsible for these chores anyway. But Bill doesn’t normally worry about these things, and so he doesn’t even notice them.
And those are the jobs that nag at me from what should be a place of rest. My body is resting, but the soul of my inner hausfrau is in agony as it sees the undone work and tries to ignore it.
The foot feels better today, but dangerously so. In other words, I limp around ok, but if I do so all morning, by afternoon, I will be in severe pain. I will need to keep my feet up as much as possible to recover as quickly as possible. I can hear the inner hausfrau screaming already, but off to the couch I go.
Reit This Way 