Saturday, February 26, 2011

Parent-texting and Percocet (a little heavy with female information in first few paragraphs - you'll get through it.)

I'm sitting here trying to cure my hangover with a cup of decaf coffee. That's like trying to lose weight on a cheesecake diet. But whatever, maybe it will help.

The week started off with both Eva and I starting our periods. This was Sunday morning right before Tim left for Vegas for the whole, ENTIRE, week. (It was a long one.) As we are driving to church Eva asks if I have any extra pads because she has yet to become responsible for her own monthly cycle. Seeing as how I was left a little vaklempt by Tim's leaving, I, at the tender age of 43, also was not responsible for my own monthly cycle.

Ahh, but we muddled through our week OK. Eva was an ornery bugger. I even confronted her about her attitude by Wednesday because I was over it. She responded like she didn't know what I was talking about but with more attitude. So, I said, "THAT attitude, that one right THERE!" I should carry around a full length mirror with me so I could show her what I've been dealing with. The attitude was exacerbated by a big Social Studies test Tuesday which I wisely chose to just not pick that battle. There will be other social studies test to pass marginally. why should this one be any different?

But as usual the week ended with a bang when I came down with a whopper of a headache. It had been bugging me a little on Wednesday, a little on Thursday, by Friday I was ODing on Tylenol and Advil to no avail. I was able to vegetate most of the day praying that immobility and by sheer lifeless determination the pain would abate. Nope. Nada. Wasn't going to happen so at precisely 3:15 I popped a Percocet. God made drug makers for a reason. I was walking around trying to not think about the pain and pretending I didn't have a headache and that wasn't working either. By then the kids were home and at first quite oblivious to my dire state despite the fact that I was a lovely shade of mint green, I was carrying around $25 worth of baggage under each eye and as Tim assuredly stated over the phone "Yeah, and I bet your hair is pretty bad too." Huh.

It didn't stop Maya from asking if I'd made it to Kohl's to pick up the tennis shoes they were holding for her and why I wasn't on my way there. I responded with "I'm not feeling well Maya, look at this." As I pointed a finger to my face and covered it in a circling motion. She laughed. Obviously the visual worked.

By 4:30 I gave up the "My head is really not splitting open, I'm just imagining it" charade and went to lay in my bed. I was feeling pretty desperate, desperate enough that I was considering calling my neighbors and asking what kinds of drugs they had in their cabinets. But I had enough sense to realize I was probably at my drug limit for the day. Or I had already far exceeded it.

The next thing I remember is Maya waking me up at 5:30 and me pretending to be coherent. I thought "Hey, it doesn't hurt so bad" and also "I'm stoned out of my mind." Maya told me not to worry about dinner. If I had been more coherent I would have worried about that statement. But I wasn't more coherent, I was heavily intoxicated. Hallelujah!

At 6:30 Maya announced dinner was ready and somehow I ambled my way to the kitchen where I found a table set with candlelight and a meal that included chicken fingers, corn and apple slices. I also found Isaac seated at the table with his head in his arm crying his little eyes out. It was perfect.

Somehow I managed to lean down to Isaac and talk him off the ledge and balance myself without falling over. We sat down to eat and I immediately realized my stomach was not into this meal so I oohed and aahed over how great everything was took two bites of apple and excused myself so I could go briefly hug the toilet.

I was trying so hard not to scare the kids because I remember all too well when my mom was having terrible headaches (coinky-dink? I don't think so) and she just looked miserable and how I would worry. So the kids would come back one by one and check on me and I would muster up, what I thought, was some semblance of normalcy and reassure them that I was feeling much better and send them on their way. I think however I sounded something like this: "Smommy's feelin' smuch better..er. I'm fline."

I believe I spoke with Tim once or twice that evening and he coined the term "parent-texting". He had been texting the kids what to cook and how to do it. At 9:00 all three of them came in and I said they should probably go to bed and they announced that dad had said they could stay up until 9:30. Technology is an amazing thing. So they all hoped in bed with me and we read for 40 minutes - me, with my eyes closed.

I woke up on Saturday morning wondering "did that really happen and did someone blow out those candles?" Apparently it all did.