owwwwwie

The time: Around 10 a.m. yesterday.
The place: In front of the refrigerator.
The scene: Daniel has gotten bored with Sesame Street and indicated he'd like a snack. I'm looking for something to feed him, and he is rummaging, picking up the various bottles within reach in the refrigerator while I tell him what's in them. "Ketchup." "Syrup." "Lemon juice." He puts the syrup back sideways, and as I reach in to straighten it, CRACK — a sudden pain in my lower back, and I almost fall on the floor. (It's always the little things that make my back go out. One day I was standing in the kitchen with a bowl of cereal in one hand, a spoon in the other. I raised the bowl a few inches, and ... CRACK.)

So I made it to the couch (just barely) and sat down to think things over. Thoughts like: "I thought my back was getting better, so what's the &$%@ deal?" "How am I going to take care of Daniel today when I can barely move?" "How am I going to get through the next seven weeks with all these back issues?" "Oh, man, this hurts." "I think I need to go to the chiropractor ASAP." "How am I going to get there?" "I think I need to call Steve." I struggled back to my feet (amusing Daniel, I'm sure, with my imitation of a hunchback) and into the kitchen to find the phone, brought it back to the couch, made the calls I needed to make, and spent most of the rest of the morning leaning against a heating pad until Steve got home.

I feel moderately better today, but I had to take Daniel in to see the doctor, and there was slippery ice in front of our house and in the parking lot at the pediatrician's, and that's a deadly combination. We made it in one piece, and fortunately, Daniel is fine. He's been waking up every night saying, "Owwwwie," and he had a fever over the weekend; I was worried he might have an ear infection or worse. But it's just a cold — combined with some major teething — so there's nothing to worry about. Just nurse him through the "owwwwies" as best I can. And nurse my own "owwwwie," too.