Monday, November 17, 2008

If You Think I Look Bad, You Should See the Bananas

Choosing to carry several bunches of bananas in my arms rather than hold onto the railing this morning, I fell down half a flight of stairs into my basement. Wow, that hurt. After moaning and writhing for a while on the cool concrete floor, I rallied long enough to make it back up the stairs, through the hallway, and into the girls' bed, where I called Matt on the cell and panted something like, "Killed myself. Come home."

It really didn't take him that long to get back here.

We ascertained that nothing is broken except possibly for my coccyx (which could be), but I am currently occupying what is commonly known as "a world of hurt." It involves lots of ibuprofin, lots of moaning, as little movement as possible, and quite a bit of parenting using mindless forms of entertainment.

Hello, coloring pages. Hello, Netflix.

I have found myself completely unable to sacrifice my Netflix subscription solely because of their "Watch Instant" feature. It's brilliant--click a couple of clicks, and you're streaming a movie, or a documentary, or an obscure TV show from the 1980s. This morning, when I was more in the whimpering and writhing in pain stage, the girls watched a lot of episodes of Caillou, but this afternoon we all watched SEVERAL episodes of PBS's Nature--one on The San Diego Zoo, one on Dogs, and bizarrely, I was so out of it that I can't even think of the third. Anyway, Watch Instant rules.

And even though I think that in general, coloring pages are not only NOT art, but also detrimental to the natural development of children's art, they're so handy in a pinch that I do keep myself well-stocked for emergencies. I have a lot of these coloring pages from Sprout, for instance--nothing with a character, but a lot of number pages and letter-sound illustrations and sea creatures and dinosaurs, etc., so later this afternoon when I was sick of nature documentaries but not feeling capable of actually thinking through an interaction with my children, I whipped them on out. And fortunately, I think I so far utilize them rarely enough that my girls still have their own agendas with them. Syd mostly "writes":
(she's asking me to spell "Dadda" for her, and every letter I say gets another little circle), and although Will does like to color the pictures, she's really into cutting these days:
Cutting is kind of a hard skill for a lefty to master, but she's plugging away.

I also got to cancel my classes tonight (woo!), and so lay in bed for another few hours watching Netflix movies while Matt cooked dinner (um, pizza and French fries?), goofed around with the girls, bathed them, and read them to sleep.

Will the coccyx be better tomorrow? We'll see.

8 comments:

  1. awwww man. that sucks. i hope you are feeling better today! poor bananas, they'll certainly be banana bread now. :)

    willow is awesome with the scissors! my mom is a proud lefty, too. my grandma said when my mom was little and came home from kindergarten she was crying, and was worried she was going to flunk cutting. :)

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  2. Oh my goodness, that sounds so painful. I hope the rest helps your coccyx (and the rest of you) feel better. Although, now that I'm thinking about it, it always seems like the second day is the worst after an injury. Uh, sorry about that.

    You know my aunt fell down some stairs and broke her coccyx. I think she found it pretty annoying, as well as painful. Sort of like when you get a little cut on your pinky finger. Who knew the pinky was so crucial to normal hand-related activities?

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  3. I broke my tailbone right out of high school on a road trip...it was horrid. I recovered and now I can't do sit-ups, so win-win!

    At any rate, I hope you feel better, and that the girls are taking good care of you while Matt's at work!

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  4. i am so sorry to hear about your injury, and find it ironic that you had a falling accident involving bananas, that did not include (comically) slipping on a banana peel.

    i feel the same way you do about coloring pages. but it sounds like you use them wisely.

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  5. Matt made the same joke! Mind you, I was right about to barf from the pain when he made the joke, so yours is way funnier.

    Have you read Young at Art? It's about how to encourage the development of children's artistic creativity--it's brilliant.

    My coccyx is feeling a little better, although the lessening of the excruciating pain has allowed me to realize that I also did something bad my right arm, right thumb, and left hip.

    Fun.

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  6. i have read young at art, and got many good ideas from it. i still feel like i am too controlling with the art supplies though, and hope to set things up so cos can just go to them and start working at will.

    that sucks that you are still in pain. TRY to take it easy!

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  7. Our house would look way better if I didn't let the girls have access to all the stuff they do, though. I model treating the materials respectfully and they get that, but you know, they're also kids--sometimes kids paint the wall.

    I've already made my peace with the fact that when we eventually want to sell this house, we'll have to move into an apartment and have it professionally cleaned and repainted and have the floors done. We'd have to do it with or without kids, because Matt and I are HARD on stuff, but if you know you're going to have to do it anyway, what's a little more Mod Podge on the hardwood?

    Our controlled substances are as follows: Sharpies, glitter, pointed-end scissors, tempera and acrylic paints, beads.

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  8. Ow, ow, ow, ow...thank goodness you didn't break anything! Hope you'll stop hurting soon.

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