I am not having my most fantabulous day. I didn’t sleep very well, I got up and started getting ready for church… only to discover that discomfort was turning into stabbing pain… and back to bed I went. Probably another ruptured cyst. If you’ve never had a ruptured ovarian cyst, here’s the medical protocol:
1) Call the doctor’s office.
2) Wait for the doc on call to call you back.
3) Describe symptoms to doc on call.
4) Doc on call tells you to go to the ER for an ultrasound.
5) Head to ER, wait for 3-4 hours.
6) Have ultrasound.
7) Doctor comes in, looks at films, and declares it was a ruptured cyst.
8) Doc gives you a prescription for pain pills.
9) Go home, take pain pills.

As I’ve already been through this routine multiple times, I figured I’d save everyone a lot of time and money and just skip straight to step 9. A quick rummage in my medicine cabinet and… yes!… one lone vicodin, left over from the last time this happened. Praise the Lord. (Now before anyone gets all maternal and scolding on me, I did make a note of the time and the pain level and vowed to pursue the proper channels if it got worse or lasted longer than 8 hours.)

I went back to bed. But first I had a little chat with the Big Guy about how I get it, I need to have surgery, I’m having the damn surgery already, next week in fact, and these little cosmic reminders are neither necessary nor endearing. Hmph.

I got up around 1:00… feeling better but not great… and commenced hobbling around the house and getting myself into a dither over all the tasks that lay as yet undone. The kids will be home around 6:00. Hmmmm. I took the trash out; after which, I seriously considered another nap. Okay, clearly I was not going to be getting much done so I should just get rid of that idea right now. Focus, Mir. Pick a few small, lightweight tasks and call it good. Okay.

During the school year, I pack lunches in the morning by retrieving the lunchbags from backpacks, emptying out the debris, wiping down the inside of the bags, and then filling with the new lunch. If I were a better mother I’d probably empty out those lunchbags the second the kids get home, leaving them sparkling clean and ready for the next day… but I’m not so I don’t. Sue me. On Friday–the last day of school–we brought home roughly twelve tons of school-related junk which is still exactly where we dropped it in the mudroom when we got home. Emptying out and putting up the lunchbags would be a light task, and I would be very glad to have done so today rather than suddenly realizing, say, two weeks from now that there was still rotting food hanging about.

I retrieved the bags (which are soft-sided lunchboxes). Strawberry Shortcake for the Chickadee, Thomas the Tank Engine for the Monkey. Both were mercifully empty of edibles. The Chickadee’s lunchbox held an impressive assortment of found objects… toothpicks, trading cards, a bottle top, and some “Funny Money” from someone else’s Lunchable. The Monkey’s bag was empty, but felt too heavy. Odd. Then I remembered the small zippered pouch on the outside. This pouch isn’t big enough to hold much of anything, but I do sometimes slip a nutrigrain bar or other safe snack in there for him just in case the school (which provides snacks) finds themselves short for him at some point.

So I unzippered the pouch expecting to pull out a cereal bar, and instead I found the Ultimate 4-year-old Stash of Treasure. I was laughing and cursing as I emptied it out. I don’t know why it struck me as so funny; had the Monkey been here when I discovered it, I probably would’ve hollered at him. But oh, at that moment, there was nothing in the world that could’ve made me feel better.

6 Danimals yogurt cup lids. 9 little juice box straws. 4 deflated yogurt tubes. 2 cheese pouch wrappers. 5 apple stems. 3 snack-size ziploc bags. 3 red plastic sticks from the hand-i-snack thingies. And a partridge in a pear tree. (Okay, no bird; but it wouldn’t have surprised me.)

That was way better than the vicodin. There is an odd comfort in a child’s proclivities.