Renewed

You know that feeling when the hangover lifts? You are in a pit of hell of your own making, sludging around in a stinky puddle of bad breath, tasting fragments of conversations you hope you didn’t blunder too badly and you know you will never be right again; not tomorrow, not next week, certainly not in 45 minutes in time to catch the bus to work.

But then, one moment clicks into the next and you can’t pinpoint it, just: one moment you were incapacitated and fearful it would never end and the next your head has stopped aching and your skin has stopped sweating and your tongue feels like it might possibly return to its normal, svelte size at any moment and you want to shout “Praise Ibuprofen!” from the rooftops.

I have that feeling right now.

I feel like I could put on my dancing shoes and go dancing. It’s not even unthinkable – there’s a party I’m missing tonight. But it is unthinkable because I am in the suburbs, I am old, it is 9:30 and up until late this afternoon when the tide shifted, I really thought I was lost in a little row boat out in The Perfect Storm and no one would ever find me to tow me back in. So, you know, none of my dancing shirts is polished.

Motherhood has made me more dramatic. And cliched. And uncaring about my overdramatism and clichedness!

In a lot of ways I am more laid back. And in a lot of ways I am just as laid back as I always was. But there has always been a maximum load that my brain can take and stay chill about. When the maximum load is reached, I cannot be diverted or distracted or jollied. I remember that maximum load being larger, say, 42 lbs in my pre-motherhood life. It seems to have shrunk.

On Monday Trombone and I went to visit a pediatrician because Dr. Awesome, who, as of yesterday, has retired, referred us. Trombone has a giant head. 19.5 inches around! I was not terribly worried about his as I know another fabulous little boy with a big head, as well as his big-headed parents and I know that head size is inherited and I know that I have a giant head (the pediatrician measured my head and confirmed this [ 22.5 inches!] and I did not google “big headed baby” because I am no idiot. Trombone seemed a little off and a little warm to me when we went to the doctor but not until we came home did I take his temperature. He had a high fever. I medicated and the fever came down. The next day, the snot came.

The day after that, Saint Aardvark and I woke up with sore throats.

The day after that, it was like someone put a hose in our house and hooked up the other end to a snot hydrant and then spun that bad boy allaway to ELEVEN. Snot Force Eleven.

Then I got my period.

Then Trombone started feeling less flu-y and more teeth-y. The symptoms are quite similar. Both involve large amounts of snot; the unwillingness to let me remove the snot from his face, a lot of whingeing and very little daytime sleep.

On Friday I drove him to my parents’ place and came back home, alone, to eat frozen mac & cheese that I couldn’t taste while watching recorded episodes of 7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls and a bunch of shows on The Food Network. I know! It was all so terrible and annoying but I couldn’t stop. I was weak and I couldn’t breathe and at least I was sitting still.

This afternoon to get him to nap (SLEEP TRAIN 2007 [daytime edition has been derailed) we went for a long walk in the sunshine and I got a cafe mocha at the coffee shop at the Most Depressing Mall in the Universe and Saint Aardvark blew his nose a lot. On returning home, Trombone had slept an hour and felt fantastic, I had had more coffee, which was exactly what I needed and suddenly, the unpinpointable moment had passed and all was right with the world.

So many times this week I thought of writing an entry to this blog to release a little tension. But it was so angry in my head; so petulant and petty. I kept waiting for it to pass so I could write about it with perspective. Days went by and it didn’t pass. I began to wonder if it would ever pass. Would I ever get the perspective? Was THIS my perspective?

It wasn’t.

Hello! I feel better!

(ducking and waiting for lightning bolt)

PS: The other night when I spiked a fever of my own, this picture nearly sent me round the bend into SellMyCDsI’mGoneForever Land. How did I not know there was a Daily Puppy site until now? HOW?