The carefree days of summer are not quite so carefree yet - I have 8 weeks of physical therapy to get through first. I had my first session last Friday. My exercises include 1) sliding my arm forward on a table top (with the aid of a towel), 2) keeping my arm bent at a 90 degree angle (resting on a table) and bending forward, and 3) using a pulley system to stretch my arm upward. Since Friday, my mobility has improved by leaps and bounds. I can shampoo the hair above my right ear! I can drive with two hands! (Although not at 10-and-2). I can brush my teeth! And I can get dressed by myself. I still can't reach across my body or stretch out to the side to retrieve something - not without severe pain - but on the whole I am doing a lot better.
The problem is, when I do tend to feel better, I totally overdo it. Just like the first day after your fever breaks, and you go on a cleaning frenzy and then collapse. Yesterday consisted of swimming lessons from 9-10, a violin lesson at 11, followed by a trip to the grocery store and three other small errands. Dean and I had previously agreed that any grocery shopping would fall on him because that was just too difficult for me, but he was way to busy doing the final preparations for a scout Court of Honor last night, so it fell to me. Rylan and I traded off pushing the cart, but it was a kid cart at Target (the extra long one with two extra seats), which is practically impossible to maneuver in the first place. By the time I had filled the cart and we were checking out, it was all I could do to hold back the tears. It hurt so. damn. bad. I came home and sat with an ice pack for a long, long, time. Then I cooked a ton of pasta to make a salad for the potluck, and cut up a watermelon. Do you know how hard it is to cut up a watermelon basically one-handed? Ugh.
I stayed home with the kids last night. Jordan is in OKC, so there was no real reason to go to the scout ceremony. It was a big night for Dean though. He is currently working on earning his Woodbadge, and part of it is to create a formal send-off for the previous ScoutMaster. The last two weeks have been *super fun* as he was preparing for this. I wish I could have seen the ceremony, but with the three little hooligans, that would have been very difficult, and they would have spoiled it for everybody else. So I was only too glad to stay at home. My introverted self does not like large potlucks with people I don't know. I also did not have it in me to chase and shush small children for two straight hours. I was in bed by 9:30, and that was absolutely awesome.
Today brings on swim lessons in the morning, and therapy just after lunch. We're skipping Park Day and karate. It is not in my or the kids' best interest to try and squeeze it all in, and therapy trumps all right now. It is cool out, with rain clouds in the foothills, which means the kids will be shivering during the lessons. I went through it when I was a kid, so it's kinda like a right of passage. I'm so compassionate. Maybe I'll bring along some hot chocolate. Maybe.
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