Fair warning. I'm feeling a little cheeky this morning.
I just used a swear word on Instagram, so there you go. Now I'll probably be banned from Instagram. Reported as inappropriate. Don't worry. It was completely appropriate.
Did you hear? It's Friday.
Just when you thought you couldn't take it any more. Relief and reprieve. And not a minute too soon.
Last night, after a long day of mothering and maiding and parent teacher conferencing and cello lessons and homework and burning up a quarter tank of gas and giving a fireside and not eating dinner til ten o'clock, I was moaning in bed.
And not the good kind.
Sometimes I get so tired and frustrated that I can no longer form words. Swear words or otherwise. And so I just groan and squall and make primal animal noises.
It helps.
My mom used to tell me that it wouldn't help. That I should just say "hippopotamus" over and over and it would make the pain go away. But I prefer caterwauling.
After a few minutes of this, I managed a few words. "I need some positive feedback," I said.
"You're doing good," David said with no enthusiasm or conviction. Like the way he says "We need milk" or "I'm going to mow the lawn."
Pathetic.
I protested. "You didn't even try." Pause. "Come on, I need Boss's Day. I'm the boss of everything and I need a day."
David caught the thread then. "Ya, isn't that dumb?" he asked, and went on a long discussion about how ridiculous Boss's Day is, my problems forgotten and left on the side of the conversation.
Ethan has been limping around the last few days. He scraped his knee at a volleyball game in P.E. and has been using my grandmother's cane around the house. Yesterday he and Olivia played wall ball on the garage door and he used the cane the entire game. Not to mention the quart of Neosporin that has been slathered on the wound. You can't be too careful.
The other kids just roll their eyes. Ethan's low pain tolerance is legendary. You should hear him when he has a canker. On more than one occasion I have considered taking him to the emergency room. For a canker. I tell David, "Maybe something's really wrong." Abscess? TMJ? Throat cancer? David just shakes his head. But I can only remember the time that Savannah cried for four days after she fell down hard on the sidewalk and I kept telling her to "be happy and put a smile on." Turns out her arm was broken.
It's possible that Ethan has shattered his knee cap and I keep making him soldier on--go to school, walk home from the bus stop, play wall ball, take a shower--all with a scraped knee. Oh, the wails that ensue during the shower scene. You'd think he was being murdered.
Every night we listen to his homicide through the walls. "Maybe something's really wrong," I say. We're probably going to have to amputate. David just shakes his head. He's had lots of experience. He's married to me after all. After years of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, he knows when something's really wrong. And it rarely is.
In the meantime, I say, do what you need to.
Scream. Yell. Bellow. Use a cane.
It hurts.
Don't I know it?