8/30/07 Slammed again

I'm really starting to resent this. My first kid-free day in some time, and a special occasion at that, since Julian isn't scheduled for Thursdays usually, and I spent much of it staggering under the crushing force of the migraine. It's been threatening all week, coming in and out, and affecting me in strange insidious ways (such as signing checks with my maiden name, or forgetting how to shift gears in my car, and dish-clinking sounds driving me to scream STOP!!). I've taken Imitrex with mixed results, sort of holding it off. But the piano fell out of the sky squarely onto my head today.

We're having a heat wave here, so the headache, heat, and child-free state all added up to taking a genuine full-on yoga class this morning. One of the few useful things one of the doctors at the headache clinic said was that some of my trouble might come from ultra-tight shoulders and neck. Could this be a biomechanical problem all along? Though I do yoga stretching, I'm a rank beginner with yoga technique, and the class today was great to tune up my method.

I went home relaxed, and lay down for a nap...and woke up with the piano on my head. I almost wasn't sure where or who I was, lying on the bed with the intense pressure squashing my will to get up, to think, to look around. Any visual or auditory input was agonizing. Eventually boredom and experience gave me the energy to get up, as I've learned over the years that changing my surroundings can make a marginal improvement. Unable to do much else, I went out to meet Dave for lunch, as being indoors was excruciating. The distraction and the avocado-mozzarella-tomato-basil salad restored basic function for the afternoon, but I'm still feeling traumatized by the severity of the pressure earlier today. And it's not over yet.

We got some wonderful gifts from Bonne Maman and Papa Paul in the mail! Yesterday I took a few videos of the boys opening them. WARNING: these are really boring and interesting only to grandparents. Everyone's welcome to see, of course, but this is hardly making cinematographic history.

Gabriel and Julian's video thank-you note:


Gabriel tries to read the tag on his gift while Julian opens his:


Gabriel reads the tag on Katrina's gift (she was already in bed):


Katrina opened hers today, and mostly was puzzled by the scotch tape sticking to her fingers. But she did due diligence on the book itself, chewing it immediately.


I'm happy to report that she was much better-natured today, and ate well, instead of fussing at every turn of events. What a relief, and what a fun baby when she's like that. Playing with a fun baby tonight was a welcome and short respite from the miserable clamour of pain and pressure pummeling my head.

Gabriel's kindergarten teacher told me in email (we had a brief exchange about his accidental hot lunch) that he's a "sweet boy" and has good manners! Now that's a relief! Oh my, if only she knew! And I hope she never does!

8/30/07