back pain and other signs of decrepitude

I was crossing the living room floor with the baby in my arms when suddenly, without any warning, my back gave out on me. I yelped and slowly collapsed like an overburdened skyscraper; it must have been an interesting experience for Hobbes, who warbled inquiringly. The Guy, who was getting ready for work and therefore a startled spectator, took a moment to figure out what was happening. Once he did, his first act was commendable -- he took the baby.

I ended on the floor, in a contorted pretzel of pain. Ow didn't seem to quite cut it, while Eeeeeeee lacked dignity.

I settled for a choked, "Ack," and thought hazily about writhing. Which I would have done, I promise, except that I couldn't seem to actually move.

It is ironic that the abuses to which I have been subjecting myself the last three months -- carrying an increasingly heavy baby about for hours at a time; tangling my limbs into odd angles to alternately extricate heavy carseats or insert carseats, whichever the case may be, from backseats; twisting about like a pipe cleaner to make room for a flailing, fragile infant who has taken over my bed and made sleep impossible -- should have caught up to me on the second to last day of my maternity leave, but there you go. It presumably had to happen sometime, which I would have realized if I had bothered to give it any thought at all.

My original intent was to spend the last two days of blissful maternity leave reveling in the company of my bobble-headed child. As it is, I spent most of the day gritting my teeth and trying to work through the pain, while the Guy played pragmatic nursemaid and poured ibuprofen down my throat at judicious intervals. Hobbes, perhaps picking up on my distress secondhand, was surprisingly docile for the majority of the day, and regarded with me great, dark-eyed worry when I had him nestled on my lap. Well, "me" is an overstatement. "My breasts," would be more accurate. "You won't leave me, will you?" seemed to be the gist of his concern -- again directed at my breasts rather than at me.

He has his priorities. Insofar as he is concerned, I am the ugly friend who drives the gorgeous babes to the milk bar so he can hit on them.

The Guy, as you might have guessed from the above, stayed at home today. This is two days in a row that we've had him at home. His start-up has him working Mondays through Saturdays, which means that even our weekends -- aren't. He worked from home yesterday; today his company's VPN kicked out until late, so he went ahead and took PTO. As of this writing (8:20 pm) he is downstairs in his home office, working, which sort of negates the whole concept of PTO -- but what can you do. Like me, he is a workaholic, and anyway the baby is upstairs dreaming round-headed baby dreams.

It's been a day for Events, small though those are in the scope of our lives. An anomaly on the Guy's latest bloodwork had him rechecked by his doctor, and resulted in a diagnosis of Thalassemia, of which he appears to be a carrier. It's a genetic blood disorder that's fairly common in his parents' part of the world, it seems; in and of itself it's fairly minor -- a propensity towards anemia in the future, maybe -- but if it turns out that I have it as well, there are some fairly significant and dangerous consequences for Hobbes. I scheduled a doctor's appointment as well for tomorrow, which just goes to show how my priorities have skewed. I hadn't bothered scheduling one for my injured back; the Thalassemia diagnosis changed my mind. Parenthood apparently means that you will go to the trouble of doing things for your child that you would never bother to do for yourself otherwise.

"Bugger," I said from the floor, while the Guy wandered around the house fetching pillows and answering Hobbes's inquisitive chirps. "I suppose this means we won't be taking Hobbes to Sears for his portrait tomorrow."

"Mm," said the Guy, who does not seem to believe in portraiture.

"I'll reschedule it for next week," I said. "You can take him in."

"Um," said the Guy.

"Did I mention I'm in a lot of pain?" I asked.

"Oop," said Hobbes, and triumphantly shoved his entire fist into his mouth.