Bumps and bruises

Anya and I have not been having a great week.

Last week, her elbow — the one she broke in pre-K — was bugging her. Waking her from a sound sleep. After a few days, I consulted her orthopedist, who x-rayed it (no new break, thankfully, and no damage to the growth plate, which was my concern), said it was likely irritation in the synovial sheath, and put her in a cast for two weeks. She was all for that…at first. But the shine wore off quickly, and she has been miserable for days. The cast is itchy and hot. She can’t do anything: can’t draw, can’t cook, can’t clean, can’t even wash herself. She keeps scratching and bumping herself and others with the cast. She’s over it. And she has another week to go.

Two days ago, I injured myself in a way that is just so me. I was taking Kai a laundry basket so he could empty the clothes dryer (he’s declared that his job) when I miscalculated the doorway and rammed into the wall with the basket. Overbalanced, slammed into the pantry door with my back hard enough to send everything not secure in the rack crashing down, then crashed butt first on the tile floor. It’d have been funny had it not hurt so bad. I kid you not, I felt the two sides of my pelvis shift outward from the impact. So I have bruises on my back, my butt bones, and my tailbone, and I appear to have strained the muscle that goes from my lower spine to the top of my thigh. Sitting is agony. And my job involves sitting for 12 hours a day.

This has been a long week.

It’s also revealed one of the nice things about having a bigger girl, though: While she is still very much my baby, we’re becoming friends. I took care of her when her arm was hurt, so she’s been taking care of me, bringing me pillows and ice packs and cups of tea. I’ve been in no position to work overtime, cook, or do anything productive, so we ate tater tots in front of the TV while binge-watching Supernatural. (She is Team Sam. I tell her I was also Team Sam in S2, but that Dean comes into his own later on.) We have a lot of Supernatural to go through, and it’s so much fun seeing it through her eyes. I’m already thinking ahead to what we’ll watch next.

I don’t have any grand plans for the next few days. Working, doing what housework absolutely must be done, then Netflix all day. I’ve not watched this much TV in years. I wouldn’t want to make a lifestyle of it, but it’s not a bad way to pass a miserably hot summer afternoon.