May Day

A typical day for me is spent caring for a toddler and an infant.  I am kept busy with singing songs, coloring pictures, changing diapers, playing with Play-Doh, folding laundry, making snacks, changing diapers, refilling sippy cups, picking up toys, changing diapers, and- well, you get the idea.  Any down time I have is spent catching a nap or catching up on email.  I don't spend much time thinking about my MS.

But some days are a bit different.

Some days I get truly exasperated trying to do it all with limited energy. Today, the infant snoozed in his swing and the toddler looked at books on my bed while I slept for a half an hour.  The wheelchair is a constant reminder that I am an unconventional mom.

This morning, my daughter and I went outside to cut the tulips.  I planted them several years ago in a spot that I intended to be my garden.  I had crawled around in my Carhartt overalls one fall and dug in the dirt; excited to see the fruits of my labor the following spring.  And was it fruitful!  The tulips grew into mammoth blooms that first spring.  I also planted wildflower seeds and transplanted a couple rose bushes.  Gardening was going to be my release.

As my daughter stepped out into the jungle of weeds to snip the flowers, I half-mindedly looked at the dead rose bushes.  I saw that only half the tulips had managed to bloom and they were not the glorious flowers they once were.  She needed help a few times but had to figure it out on her own with some coaching from mom in the wheelchair on the sidewalk.  Soon she was finished and I went inside to get them in water, while she stayed outside and splashed in puddles.

After I trimmed and arranged the flowers, I saw the mail on the kitchen table that my husband had just brought in.  The NMSS publication "Momentum" arrived.  I picked it up and flipped through the pages.  As usual, I found some good tips for living life with MS.  And as usual, I scoffed at the ads for the many meds I've tried and have failed me.  The patients in the ads look so healthy, so fit, so...vertical.  Good for them.

I keep a good attitude most days.  I remind myself how incredibly blessed I am, and in how so many ways I am so very, very lucky.  Usually I pick myself up from my woe-is-me thoughts with these reminders, and it works.  But some days- days like today- I give myself permission to just be down.  There is therapy in that, too.

May 2nd, 2012

...and today is a new day!  Those tulips greeted me this morning and they are so pretty that I had to smile.