I am now the proud owner of a piece of paper that says that I am entitled to be the proud owner of a hangtag that says that I am entitled to park in disability-designated parking spaces. I am a complete and total wimp. Except, you know, it’s seriously painful to walk these days. So wimp or not, I’m not sorry that I’ll have the option, at least, to park a little closer to my office and to the grocery store. Not that I’m making many trips to the grocery store these days. But still.
Also, since I can’t keep my mouth shut, I am also the proud new owner of a prescription for Ampicillin since I appear to still have a UTI despite a round of Macrobid. Did I mention I hate Ampicillin? And did I mention it’s 4x per day? And did I mention that I’m pretty good at taking medicine once per day, moderately good at taking medicine 2x per day, and lousy at taking anything more often than that? Oh well. I’ll figure it out.
Yesterday I did too little and too much work all at the same time. My husband was outside doing yardwork (which desperately needed to be done) since J was playing in his brand new sandbox and someone needed to be supervising him anyway. The plans for the rest of the day were that my mother was going to take J to the Aquarium, my husband was going to an afternoon wedding that I had declined to attend, and I was going to try to sift through some of the chores that could be tackled from a seated position (e.g. folding laundry, sorting through books that could be donated, etc.) for the afternoon. While S and J were outside, I sat down and looked around the state of the living room and started to stress out.
How on earth was I going to get everything done? I can’t lift anything over ten pounds (and frankly, anything over five pounds is getting difficult). I can’t stretch up to reach anything high, and I’m losing my balance on a stool, so that’s out. J’s toys are everywhere, for gone are the days when I pick up everything before I go to bed every night, and I can’t figure out what happened to the rule that all his toys get put away before bath, tooth brushing, and bedtime. The blankets are no longer folded neatly on the arm of the couch, for they are fun capes and tents for J’s games, but bending over to pick them up is painful for me and no one else seems to see them. Only me. And then I began to realize this is the tip of the iceberg. This was just ONE room.
What about the guest room? You know, the guest room that in three months is supposed to turn into a nursery? The room that currently has two ugly dressers, an ugly nightstand and two twin beds in it? That’s the one. When are those dresser drawers getting emptied out? I’ve emptied out what I can, but the rest of it is my husband’s stuff and I don’t know whether it can be donated, thrown out, or redistributed. And, hey, can we please throw those ugly dressers out? I’ve wanted them gone since before we got married! I can’t put three cribs in there if the dressers are in there. And the two beds… well, one of them is going into J’s room eventually, but what about the other? I don’t want to get rid of it, but what to do with it in the meantime?
And the kitchen? The kitchen hasn’t been the same since Pesach! I haven’t managed to get the pantry back together. Half of the stuff that’s SUPPOSED to be in it is still in boxes in the storage room down in the basement. Which means the storage room in the basement is a disaster and therefore completely useless as a storage room, which is NOT helpful because I need storage space RIGHT NOW!!
You have to understand, I’m a very organized person, and somehow in the last, I’m not sure how long actually, my life has gotten completely out of control. Between all the hormones I injected into me, the demanding hours at work, raising a three year old, getting pregnant, dealing with a miscarriage, getting pregnant again, dealing with the fact that it’s no ordinary pregnancy, and everything else, it’s just all gotten away from me. I can’t seem to get my life to slow down, and so my house seems to have gotten out of control. By many of my friends’ standards, my house is just fine. Perhaps a little more cluttered than I’d like, but not bad. But it’s DRIVING ME BATTY.
And suddenly, I’ve lost all power of reason. I’m a list-maker. I can make lists of lists. I can make an Excel spreadsheet for ANYTHING. I can tackle any job if only I’ve got the right list. I can assign responsibility. I can delegate (well, okay, mostly I can delegate to myself). I can make things happen. I meet deadlines. That’s what I do. For I am a consultant in real life. I don’t just play one on TV. And yet…I can’t seem to figure out how to make THIS list. I can’t figure out how to tackle the myriad of things that need to be done to get ready for three babies. I can’t figure out where to start. And that’s not even counting the fact that I can’t figure out what stuff I need for the babies. I haven’t registered for a thing and I hate registering for stuff, but my stepmother is ITCHING to go on a shopping spree (and I can hardly complain about THAT, can I, particularly since she and my father are already spending $600 on car seats for me), so I need to register even though I have no idea what I need. The list… it’s neverending.
So there my poor husband was outside doing yardwork and supervising J, and I walked waddled outside and told him we need to sell/give away the piano. The piano that I haven’t touched in months and months and months. Because I can’t stand that it’s taking up space that could be used for a changing table or a stroller or bookshelves or SOMETHING. Because I can’t stand that it collects STUFF. And then I started to cry, because the garage needs to be cleaned out and the pantry is in disarray and the dressers are ugly and I don’t know where the cribs are going until the guest room gets cleaned up and dammit those blankets are on the floor because they made such fun tents for J to play with, but it hurts to bend over to pick them up! (yes, I have a cleaning lady, but she comes on Fridays, and J played his game with the blankets on Saturday). My poor husband. He said, “Okay, I’m coming in, because obviously the priorities inside the house are far more important than the outside priorities.” Except I couldn’t make him do that because J was SO happy playing in his sand box and my mother was going to be by to pick him up really soon, so I couldn’t make him stop just because I was having some sort of ridiculous panic attack.
And so I didn’t. I came inside intent on finding some small, finite project that I could do in a chair. But I didn’t. Instead, I loaded the dishwasher and did a load of dishes. My mother came and picked up J, my husband took a shower and left for the wedding, and I fell asleep in the chair. The very chair in which I was supposed to be accomplishing something. S came home early from the wedding and was going to help me with the pantry, but wanted to cool down a bit in front of the fan first, so he said he’d fold the laundry first. So I ran another load of dishes in the dishwasher. And I set up another load of laundry (on the delay cycle so it wouldn’t interfere with the dishes). And I helped fold the laundry. And eventually I realized I hadn’t eaten all day, so I went to heat up some lunch/dinner, and I wandered into the attic with S to help him figure out what boxes needed to go outside for the folks who were picking up stuff to be donated Monday morning. And promptly forgot that my lunch was in the microwave, and spent an hour sorting through boxes in the attic. Why do we have so much stuff? Where did it all come from? And so it went.
And finally, I admitted defeat. The pantry never did get dealt with. We’ll put that on “the list”… that neverending, ever-expanding list.
Maybe next week will be better.
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ChezPerky 
