Friday, January 18, 2008

1/18/08 The Mayhem


Gabriel had school off today, so he went with Katrina to Melissa's today. She brought them both back home in the afternoon, along with her son 7-year-old Jackson, and they stayed for a little while.

Even though Gabriel and Jack had had the whole afternoon together, they hadn't tired of running like crazy, shouting at the top of their lungs, jumping on the furniture, wrestling, and full-out horseplay. Julian joined in the fray, and it was complete, total, ear-splitting chaos for a while, as only boys can make together. Yeah, yeah, girls can play hard too, but piling up, picking each other up, holding each other upside-down, shaking each other, pushing, pulling, racing, grabbing, pouncing, total all-physical rough-housing -- it's all boy. No tea party here. I love it. (It's hard not to imagine wistfully if baby#3 had been a boy too....)

I did get them to calm down briefly by having them sit on the couch and make faces for the camera. Meanwhile, Katrina, not in the slightest bit intimidated by all the rough action around her, pushed herself up to a stand and walked unsteadily across the rug, to the joyful delight of all three boys.


Jackson spends every afternoon with Katrina, and he adores her. He carries her, he plays with her, says he loves her, he's on her all the time -- in fact, Melissa has the same trouble keeping him from bugging her as I do with her brothers. Who knew little boys liked baby girls so much?!

As my poor friends have endured me complaining doggedly about, I just can't let go of this ankle problem. It reminds me of when my right wrist got so painful for a while, from motorcycling and from too much mousing, that I started mousing left-handed, cut back on riding and used a throttle lock whenever I could. It took well over a year before it didn't bother me all the time, and the introduction of right-hand-specific mice got me using the mouse with my right hand again. Persistent, gradual, achy sort of pain from too much use. Tendons.

So some targeted Googling today turned this up: Tibialis Posterior Tendinitis. It, and all articles on it I've found since, describe my ankle troubles to a T. Yeah, T, as in, Tendinitis. And, Tenacious. It's not going to go away easily. But, there are ways to prevent and treat it, and it's going to mean always keeping an eye on it and always backing off when it flares up. Of course, I'll let the doctor diagnose it himself next week, but until then, I'll Treat it Tenderly. I'd rather break my leg! That heals!


Before Melissa and the mayhem arrived, I had a few minutes alone with Julian, who only slightly willingly sort of posed for the camera. I was actually trying to get a good picture of his beautiful pout, but that's only going to happen candidly. Still, I love his smile even more.

It's actually a really bad picture. He's so cute in real life. And that mouth...!

1/18/08

No comments: