Rain, rain, moldy brain

It has been raining, forecast rain, off and on raining, no end in sight soggy for weeks now. April showers brought May flowers and May monsoons and June deluges. I'm afraid I'm not weathering it very well. Pun intended.

Today was a day that I spent the better part of trying not to burst into tears.

My body is showing signs of break down. I've got some bad tendinitis. They call it tennis elbow, though I haven't had any tennis anywhere near my elbow in a few years at least. Bottom line, I'm in a lot of pain. I'm wincing every time I pick up my son, every time I forget and use my left hand to lift a glass of milk to my lips, every time I roll over in bed. It's pathetic, but it's impossible to rest or avoid and it hurts like a mo-fo.

My car is in the shop. It needs new brake pads and a break flush, and several belts and caps that will supposedly make the AC run again. Oh that's right, my AC shot it's wad in the middle of June. I'm one of those cheapskates who might drive around for a while on the highways with the windows down. But if it's going to RAIN EVERY SINGLE DAY!?!?! I can't expect people to understand if my kid is arriving at day care soak and wet...

Today started with JB taking a tumble on the stairs.

On my watch.

He likes to "walk" down now the stairs now, facing forward, holding on to the railing that is just barely within his reach. If he pays attention, he does really well; though he does look (in his quest for the banister) like a kid who's arm is being pulled straight up into the air by a parent who is trying to lift him our of a puddle with one hand. He did 5 stairs tolerating my constant pestering, "Pay attention, look at your feet..."

Then, as if he was sick of hearing all my advice, he turned around and crawled down backwards (he never does this). We were 3 stairs from the bottom, I took my eye off the ball, thinking we were home free, and he flipped around, trying to take the last few like the two-legged creature he is. I knew it was coming but could not react in time. I was in front of him and as he fell toward me, I locked my knees effectively bouncing him into the wall but preventing him from rolling past me. Before I could swing him up onto my impaired left forearm, he was wailing and the bruise and bump had already formed. Katy swears what she meant to say was, "What happened, is everyone alright?" But what came out of her mouth as she sprinted to the stairs was, "How did this happen???" I felt like shit about it the rest of the day. I know this child will have many more falls and bruises in his lifetime, but this one could have and should have been avoided. Mommy should'a been on point.

A few minutes after that drama, when JB's tears were dry but I wasn't sure if I might still need to cry about it, our doorbell rang. We scheduled an early AM appointment to price out refinishing our floors. The old dude arrived and clearly could not figure out what 2 women were doing in a home with one baby and no man in sight at 7:55 in the morning. He measured the rooms and took stock of the hard wood and just before he wrote out the quote, he tipped his head to JB, smiled, and nodded toward me, "Is that your grandma?"

blink.blink.blink.

I looked down at my breasts (saggier than they once were for sure but not too shabby in this high priced bra) and tried not to scream, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, OLD MAN?" It might not have been so bad if my birthday wasn't coming up, but I couldn't help thinking all day that the older you are, the younger other people usually look. This guy could have fathered Noah. I should have looked like Miley Cirus to him... But I guess where he comes from, if 2 ladies are living together, there must be a shared bloodline and generation separating them.

I spent much of the rest of the day running late and feeling anxious and wanting to run away and sleep (in the impersonal rental car that has temporarily taken the place of my crap-filled-forester).

I spent some of the day thinking about our house and what it means that we have not sold it yet. Why are we meant not to move before this baby will be born? Why has the amazing energy that we have experienced in this home not drawn some other family to it?

I spent some of the day thinking of racism and power and "otherness".

When I got to work at 1pm, i felt like I had been crying all day, even though I hadn't shed a tear.

Katy and I went to Ikea tonight to buy some furniture to set up a big boy bed for JB so that he won't feel misplaced by the bean v2.0. Twelve weeks and counting...

A few minutes ago, I went in and stroked the sweaty, bruised head of our son and for about the million and first time today, felt tears choking up inside of me. They were sort of love-drenched, sappy tears, but also sort of disparate, fear-filled, sad tears. How are we going to take our baby out of that crib?!?!? How am I going to keep him safe from all of the ways he can get wounded in this world?!? I know I can't, but how am I going to be able to stand there while it all happens to him? Doesn't adding another little boy to the mix just mean there will be more chances to cause inadvertent bruising??? Or not make the catch when they need me to???

My tears never fell. So they are just kind of stuck inside of me. Just kind of heavy and dank, and freaking me out. But it's okay I guess, there's enough water saturating the land right now to cause a tiny puddle in our basement... what we don't need right now, is more ground water...