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Tomorrow I go for my first physical therapy session. At last count I had about a dozen different ( or similar) offers to whack my pelvis back into place. How kind. I think I'll go the physical therapy route for now, but I'll keep your suggestions in mind.

The current meds seem to work ok. I trade full pain coverage for full brain function now that I am off the vicodin, but it's a price I am willing to pay. I need my brain to work properly. It lets me handle things like this morning.

I came in the house, after dropping Beks off at school, to find Brian in full rant about the furnace. He told me yesterday that it wasn't working right and to listen to it during the day, which I did. And it functioned properly all day. However, not this morning. Now we had no heat.

It's not that it is bitter cold out, it's 41 degrees right now. But a broken furnace, one that keeps running but not engaging the fan, is not something we like to wait on. All things house are my domain. Clogged toilet to appliance repair-- my job. A hook rips out of the wall- I repair it. A cup of cocoa drops on the carpet? I haul out the cleaner. Lock repair, wall painting,computer rebooting, new microwave installation- all these things are on my Job Description.

Calling the furnace repair guy is also my job.. and normally I would do it when Brian was gone, but he was still here. I wanted to get on this as soon as possible and 7:45 AM was good enough for me. But apparently Brian was not satisfied with the description I was giving the man on the phone. He kept yelling the words he wanted to hear. While he was sitting on the can.With the door open. 10 feet from me.

" The heat pump isn't working properly, and the fan on the AC unit won't shut off but the furnace fan won't run" I said.

" TELL HIM THAT SOMETHING LOUD WAS RUNNING ALL NIGHT! I'M SURPISED THE NEIGHBORS DIDN"T LODGE A COMPLAINT" screamed the man with his pants around his ankles.

" I turned the thermostat to " emergency" but the furnace isn't clicking on" I said trying to walk away from the powder room.

" TELL HIM HE WAS JUST OUT HERE TO CHECK THE FURNACE FOR THE WINTER AND THIS BETTER BE UNDER WARRANTY!" Pants now pulled up but talking over running water.

Then the guy on the phone totally cracked me up: " wow, your phones are great I can hear everything!"

But he sent a guy out right away. The same guy that came a month ago as I was puking my guts out in the kitchen sink. The part was under warranty and within an hour we had heat again.I just have to wonder what our file says . Maybe " Crazy family but pay on time".

Brian was also upset because he has had to log onto his AOL account all week. For some reason his cookie keeps getting deleted.. but I can't explain this to him because he doesn't understand it. He wants to sit with his coffee, after doing his morning Bible reading, and check his email. Apparently typing his password is an added step he doesn't want. I don't use AOL. It isn't Susan Intuitive. I can't explain that either because he likes it, for some reason, and wants it to work the way he wants it to work when he wants it to work. " Get 'er done, Bunny."

* pause to explain.. That is my family nickname, given by him many years ago because he thinks my feet in socks look like little bunnies. I don't see it, I have very small feet and bunnies have proportionately large feet, but it stuck and now everyone uses it. Not you. Please don't."*

The other drama I was juggling is that Noah seems to have picked up a cold somewhere. I say that like the source is a mystery but if I was a Betting Mom I would narrow it down to his first statement when I picked him up from school the other day. You know, his first day back after being sick for 2 weeks ? He gave me a big hug and screamed " Lana sneezed in my FACE!" ( he obviously gets his sense of subtlety from his father). Now we are on day one of a cold. The day where he is a bit tired, a bit grumpy , a bit sneezy and a bit dopey. I hope we don't have to throw in another dwarf and call him a Doc. I probably would have kept him home even if I wasn't opening the door for the furnace guy at the same time I should have been driving him to study the letter B and cough into his sleeve. Not a big drama, but if he gets worse, and really sick again, it will turn to big drama.

But I get to escape tomorrow to go to Physical Therapy. Right at this moment it sounds like a trip to a spa. Kid free, me and paid strangers concentrating on my problems. I suppose that tells me I need to get out, need to distance myself from My To Do list of home repair, child raising, and husband PMS wrangling. But doing something to help stop my pain so I can fully concentrate on, as well as develop, the more interesting things in my life will be as refreshing and renewing as a spa day.Of course I have never been and will probably be moaning about it in a day, but let me live with this image for now. Tomorrow I get to get back to my back and the promise of that fills me with hope. Hope that I get to scratch that project off my To Do list!

Domino fever

As I overstated previously, when a kid is sick, my feeling is that they need to stay home. From school, from activities, from church... stay home and keep the germs confined to your own house as much as possible. It is for the greater good. But there is a side ailment that can occur because of this quarantine. They can't stay home alone and even if you don't get the illness that is keeping them there ( good luck with that) you can contract a related condition.

They are sick which in turn makes you sick. Like a line of dominoes falling, one topples another and soon what was once a nice tidy vertical collection of standing dominoes falls to become a big mess. I'm talking Cabin Fever. No joke. Not register-able on any thermometer, but one of those ailments that you just KNOW you have. You are bored, although there is a lot to be done you just are unmotivated to do it. Every day looks eerily like the last. You begin to think that the big black box in the corner is a better babysitter for your sick child than you are. You begin to look forward to the Nick Jr lineup-- oh goodie! Backyardigans is on next! That Pablo...


When you do experience it, the first thing you are going to do is check on Web MD... ha ha.. you are so funny. But let me spare you the shock: when you type in " Cabin Fever" on Web MD you get results- mostly for depression. Of course this diagnosis does nothing to cheer you up. NOTHING. As a matter of fact it sends you into a tailspin. I'm honestly not making fun of anyone who might have a serious mental illness such as clinical depression. If you check the symptoms for that and you come up with more YES! points on the symptom quiz, get yourself to the doc. Better living through chemistry, Baby. What I am talking about is what occurs when you are stuck in the house too long with a child. Kids don't get sick when it's nice out, they get sick when the weather is nasty. Going outside for a shot of Vitamin D and letting the sick kid sit on the deck to have the warm breezes blow the funk off of him isn't an option. Usually winter is one long crud fest. If you have multiple kids who share the crud you could be looking at very long stretches stuck inside. Cabin fever is a an inevitability.

Want a symptom checker?
-The walls feel like they are shrinking in.Your house goes from 2500 sq feet of comfy living to doghouse overnight. Maybe birdhouse.
-The hardest household chore is getting up from the kitchen table after ingesting your daily allotment of caffeine.You make excuses to stretch out the slow parts of your day. Someone wrties these classified ads, you might as well honor them by reading them all. You succeed and the whole day becomes painfully slow. Clock ticking backward slow.
-You think going to the mailbox is " getting out".
- You begin to call your pajamas " lounge wear" so that you can justify wearing them all day.
- You have a lot to do, but you just don't waaaaaaannnnnaaaa.
-You have a burst of energy- you clean the whole house in an hour, but your husband comes home to find you in tears because somehow the sick kids messed up every room in 45 minutes and now it looks worse than when you started.


At this point a more evolved mom would come up with a well thought out list of ways to counter attack Cabin Fever. I suppose I could tell you that it will be over with soon. That you will be complaining about your busy taxi schedule in no time. I can reassure you that you will have face-to-face adult conversation again with someone who doesn't share your house. I could suggest that you give your friends a disclaimer before your first outing-- you might have a slightly wild look to your eyes and keep talking about how much you love them all and burst into happy tears when someone compliments your shoes. I could even suggest that you take up an internal house hobby to get you through your confined times. Preferably one that you can put down and pick up quickly and requires little thought and minimal cleanup. Probably not writing because just as you form a thought a kid will have to go to the bathroom NOOOW and you will not be able to f.. I could recommend that you put some structure to your day because kids, as well adults, thrive on structure.

A list like that would be handy , but I would be a hypocrite to write it. Aside from one hour at church ( including travel time) I have been at home for a week and a half with sick kids. At this moment my only non-familial interaction is through facebook and a moms message board. I have an hours worth of ironing that I COULD be doing, a kitchen that needs cleaning up from the breakfast rush, and a kid watching Imagination Movers a few feet away from me... ooh! Imagination Movers... I like this show..... that Mover Scott..