Friday, July 15, 2005

Toes

Genevieve is all about the walking. Once she gets started, tromping one little foot in front of the other, she focuses all of her awareness on the task. She seems to be watching her boxy feet as they splat their way forward.

Interesting the parallels we find between our weird little lives. I am all about the walking, too. Heel-walking my left foot forward then squarely placing my right foot ahead of it. Glancing down and watching other people’s feet to make sure they are not about to enter my injured toe space.

Genny and I both concentrated on our walking for this brief moment in time. Within days or weeks, I will have forgotten all about the extra care and attention I needed to walk safely. Within weeks or months, Genny will have forgotten about all the extra effort required to walk securely.

I wonder what other skills I will be awarded the opportunity to remaster with Genevieve. Hopefully, nothing having to do with potty training.

Genny has in the past week decided she doesn’t like having her diaper changed. The moment we enter her room and head for the changing table she starts crying and twisting her body. I place her down on her back and she immediately rolls over and stands up. Strapping her down with the belt does no good—she rolls over halfway and gets all twisted up.

My solution for the moment is pull-up diapers. So, now I encourage her to stand up and place her hands on my shoulders while I whip down the old one, do a quick wipe and slip up the new one. Great for pee-diapers, but not so efficient for the poopie ones. She always manages to sit down on her feet and get poop in the crevices of her toes.

Ah, the joys of motherhood that no one can ever take away from you.

Poopie toes and broken toe—I will remember you.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Humping the Kitty

It’s quite a relief to have our Internet connection back up—when we came home from vacation that was just one more thing that was broken. It was strange how disconnected from the world I felt.

To top off the old broken toe, I’ve come down with a bit of a cold or virus, which I got from Nick, who got it from Genny.

I worked today, which went better than I was afraid it might since I was unable to demonstrate poses. I even hobbled to the pharmacy and grocery store this afternoon. My toe was hurting a lot less all day, but I think I might have overdone it a bit today because now my toe is screaming hurtful profanities in my direction.

Genevieve has a new hobby, which I like to refer to as humping the kitty because she is, in fact, humping the kitty. She climbs onto Lula and thrusts her hips and pelvis in a humping motion against her warm silky fur. I have to admit I’m surprised to see this thrusting and rubbing so early on. That’s all I have to say about that, except that I feel bad for Lula who is now being humped not just by her feline brother, Luke, but also a baby.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Vacation

If bad luck comes in threes, then we had a string of bad luck on our vacation. It all started out with Nick having an intuition that we shouldn’t go this weekend, but it wasn’t strong enough to prevent us from carrying on with our plans.

We carried out our multitude of bags, toys, sheets, towels, food and other assorted stuff to the hallway to find out the elevator was broken, which meant carrying the aforementioned pile down four flights of stairs. Plus, a baby in a stroller and a pack and play crib.

Friday, it rained the entire trip up to the Adirondacks, but it was still lovely to spend time with our friends. Saturday, it rained all day in the Adirondacks, so we decided to drive to Lake George and find some kind of a fun indoor play space for Genny. What we did find were many arcades, ice cream shops and a haunted house, so we chose an arcade that had kiddie rides up front by the window onto the street.

Genny’s first choice was a mini-carousel of horses. I sat her down on a horse and Nick plopped a quarter inside. I was rather surprised at how speedy the ride went. Genny was galloping away into the distance, well, beyond my arm’s reach. Nick and I chased her horse around in a circle a few times and then we just kind of watched as she slid off the horse right onto the cement floor.

She immediately cried and was inconsolable. She wouldn’t look us in the eye. She started shutting her eyes and acting like she was going to pass out. Neither Nick nor I could tell if she had actually hit her head, but it was about a three-foot fall.

We decided the hospital was our best bet. Driving the seemingly endless miles through green, green trees, Genny threw up. “Drive quickly,” I said as calmly as I could to Nick.

After waiting for a few hours, Genny got seen. Our pediatrician had wanted a CAT scan, but the ER doctor thought she was okay, so we departed finally with a cranky, hungry and exhausted family.

The next day was warm and we enjoyed ourselves at Crystal Lake. Genny seemed fine and splashed along the lake’s edge and dug sand with a yellow shovel. Nick and I were dealing with our own feelings of parenting inadequacies the entire day. Especially after Genny had already fallen off the bed when she learned to crawl—we thought we had learned our lesson.

Nick had been feeling like he might be coming down with something and so, of course, he got sick. I drove to the next town to get him some medicine, which, of course, would end up making him unable to sleep that night. Lucky for him, I couldn’t sleep either, what with the pounding pain erupting from my toe.

At dinner that evening, Genevieve had reached out for a hot plate that had just been set on the table. I suppose my unconscious was eager to prove it was a good parent, so it sent an emergency message to my arms to reach out and stop her from hurting herself, which set my dinner plate to flying off the table and attacking my second toe on the left foot.

I had never broken any bones in my life, but at this point, I knew my track record itself, had been broken. The pain surged through my toe and foot, but Genny was safe. Genny had not burned her little tootsie-fingers. My toe swelled up; I iced it down; I swallowed Tylenol; Nick buddy-taped my toe. And nobody slept that night.

We returned to Genny’s Emergency Room on our way home, but this time for Mommy. We joked with the hospital staff about our return and our seemingly jinxed vacation. It didn’t take long to get my toe x-rayed and to find out that it indeed was broken. The nurse buddy-taped my toe with some gauze in between my toes and gave me some strong Motrin, instructions on how to heel-walk (referred to as “heal walk” on my take-home instruction sheet) and a bag of ice inside of a surgical hat.

Just what a yoga teacher and a mom needs—a broken toe. It really makes my jobs a lot easier.

My lessons learned? That I have to be more careful even when I don’t think I need to be and even still—accidents may happen. As for my fractured toe, I suppose I can look at it as a message from some higher power that I need to slow down. Take gingerly steps through life. And wear metal-toed shoes.