I Am MilSpouse, Hear Me Roar! (*sputter*)

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Two days ago, on the way to prepare dinner, I somehow managed to slip and fall down the stairs at my house. Because I tend to do most things in a big way, the result was that I somehow managed to smash my tailbone into every step on the way down, only stopping because I ended it by crashing into the wall.

Very typical.

And it hurt. A lot. My pride most of all. Anyway, I had things to do (like feed a roiling horde of hungry children) so when after a short break to regain my breath (and my dignity), I hitched into the kitchen to make something to eat. As any milspouse will tell you whenever something happens - life goes on.

Luckily, yesterday morning I felt a little stiff, but otherwise fine. Life goes on, right? I had a bathroom that needed the wallpaper scraped off, so I set to work.

Big mistake. Big, giant, BAD mistake.

I did get the bathroom completely scraped off, which involved lots of twisting, reaching, and balancing delicately on the edge of the tub to get to spots not meant for a short woman to reach. I also had some laundry to do, so I lugged a few various size hampers from the bedrooms to our laundry area in the basement.

Within an hour after finishing the bathroom scraping, I realized what a big mistake I had made. Perhaps physical labor the day after repeatedly smashing my tailbone into the stairs was not the best decision I have ever made. What seemed like "just a little stiffness" to me was obviously something more.

From about 1 in the afternoon on yesterday, I was not moving out of bed. I wasn't moving much IN bed, either, because any direction I turned was agony. I did get out of bed to visit the bathroom, but there was even some debate before that happened because I had to run a mental checklist to figure out what was worse - the pain from getting up or the gross factor from not getting up. The pain won out, barely, but I also seriously thought about dehydrating myself for the rest of the day so that I wouldn't have to get up again.

Air Force Guy was more than a little irritated at me over the whole thing, and he wasn't alone. I got a message from one of my friends that took me to task, "You fell down the stairs yesterday and thought it would be okay to strip wallpaper off walls today? Put down the crack pipe, woman!"

I claim temporary insanity cased by MilSpouse-itis. You know what it is and all the symptoms, right?

1) Knowing nothing will get done if you don't do it.

2) Knowing you're the only around who can get it done because your spouse is either thousands of miles away or unreachable in a tank, a plane, or some secure building with lots of antennae bristling off the top.

3) Having a checklist of things to accomplish by the time your spouse leaves/gets home (it's always one or the other, right?) and just NOT having time for this hiccup in plans, which results in a game of "Pretend the Problem Doesn't Exist".

4) An ingrained inability to sit still without constantly tallying all the lists of things that need to be done.

5) Guilt. Lots and lots and lots of guilt. Tons of guilt. Did I mention guilt?

Oh come on now. Every milspouse has been there, right? And that's where I was yesterday. AFG will be leaving in just a few short weeks, and I HAVE STUFF TO DO!! No stupid stairs are going to stop me! I'll show that Karma who is boss!

Well, consider me schooled. Karma made it's point. I get it. Okay. Lesson learned. I spent yesterday afternoon on alternately in bed or in the bathtub soaking the ouches away. Kid #2 and AFG teamed up to get dinner done, and this morning all AF Kids in the house took care of their own breakfasts (thank goodness for cereal and GoGurt! - and I don't even want to THINK about what the kitchen and dining room look like!).

I'm feeling much better this morning. But I promise I'm not going to get up and scrape any wallpaper or start any landscaping projects just yet. I'll wait until at least tomorrow.

Story Continues
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