Living in Between

The other day we woke up to frigid temperatures and ice crystals on the windows. The next day it warmed up so much that by mid-morning it was raining. The night before the rain, I had a sore throat. I slept for about 45 minutes, then we fed the babies, then I slept for about an hour and a half, and then I had to get up during Jake's feeding because both babies were crying. Then I slept for about 2 hours, and got up at 5:15 to get ready to feed the babies. I fed them at 5:30, and by the time I was done it was about 7 a.m. and I had to get ready for work, because I had a couple of meetings to attend.

So I showered and dressed, feeling sick with my sore throat and headache and stuffed up nose. Fed the babies again from 8:30 - 9:45, pumped from 9:45 to 10, and then headed out the door to catch the 10:11 bus so that I could be on time for my 10:30 meeting. Because I had two meetings and would see lots of people, I put on some nice clothes and wore my nice boots instead of my clunky, ugly-but-practical snow boots. It was just raining, not snowing. So I hurried out the door in the pouring rain with my umbrella and my work bag and hurried down the sloping driveway, the ICY sloping driveway, because the rain was starting to freeze, and you can probably see where this is going...

My feet slid out from under me and I landed hard on my tailbone. It knocked the breath out of me and it hurt so much that I immediately started crying, loudly, and the neighbors all probably thought I was nuts, lying on my driveway in the pouring rain while screeching. My mother rushed out to help me up and said "I'm driving you to work", and I said "No, I'm fine, and I don't want to leave Jake alone with the babies", and I hobbled off to the bus stop, sniffling and feeling pathetic. The bus pulled up into a giant puddle that splashed all over me. The seat of my pants was soaked from my fall, and the front of my pants were soaked from the puddle. I got on the bus and spent the ride half sitting, half crouching because it hurt too much to really sit down.

I arrived for my 10:30 meeting only to discover it had really been a 10:00 meeting and I was half an hour late. I am not the kind of person who is late. I am the kind of person who generally has it together, who meets deadlines, who in fact completes tasks before the deadline. I am the person who is 5 minutes early for every class, for every meeting. Now I'm mixing up the times of meetings and I'm missing deadlines right and left and I'm falling on my ass, literally. Would it even be possible to do a lousier job at trying to balance babies and work?

My colleague and I had another meeting to attend after the 10:30 (er, 10:00) meeting, and we were half an hour late thanks to my being half an hour late to the first meeting. So we rushed down to the second meeting, and when I peeked in the door I didn't recognize the people in there, and it didn't look like the right meeting at all. So we rushed around trying to find the correct location for the meeting, worrying that they had ended it without us even arriving, and we found out that actually the meeting was scheduled for next week. We were off by a week. Again -- would it even be possible to do a lousier job at trying to balance babies and work?

I arrived home feeling completely wiped out, unable to sit down, stiff and sore, and harboring a cold on top of everything. Utterly defeated.

But the following picture did cheer me up:

This cracks me up. I'm very lucky that when I do have to go into work in the freezing rain to attend meetings, at least I'm leaving the babies at home with my mom and Jake. I don't have to worry about how they're doing while I'm gone, or about the care they're receiving.

Or do I? What on earth were my mom and Jake doing when this picture was taken? Those are my mom's hands, and the picture was on Jake's camera. I can just imagine them: "Hey, let's experiment by putting the babies side by side and seeing how they like it. Oh, looks like they're really starting to lose it. How cute! Quick, take a picture while I jiggle them as they look pissed off and start to cry!"

Well, it's best not to ask too many questions. They can perform all of the twisted experiments they want, as long as it leaves me time to fall on my ass as I attempt to negotiate my new life as a working mother.