Putting My Foot Down!

I put my foot down. My good foot that is, on principal that no mother should be left to languish incapacitated in her bedroom from sun up to sundown. Suffering pain from both MCL and complete ACL tears following a skiing accident, as if birthing four children wasn't enough, my life consists of RICE, (rest, ice, compression and elevation), and my en suite bedroom my natural new habitat. The days of 'alone time' sounding dreamy are not gone; they are merely on hold as the risk/reward of hurling myself down a flight of stairs for a Grub Hub delivery is questionable insanity.

Covid-quarantine has apparently rendered my family especially deaf to my pleas for help. Mainly confined to my bedroom for my own sanity, the five other family members are unable to hear my cries for help with headsets affixed to their skulls diligently 'working' online. 

What child responds quickly to a mother's call? I've gone through all their names, from "Gavin please come, are you there?" to "Colin Thomas can you hear me? Get in here now!" proudly without using profanity, and with the success rate of zip, zilch, zero. My stomach growling at 1:00 pm without so much as coffee and a bagel for breakfast, I adopted a new social media strategy. Lord knows they don't answer my phone calls!

Starting off with text was as useless as connecting with them on Facebook; don't even think of calling me Karen! Snapchat was my next best alternative. I snapped a pic of my knee brace with the words "Help?!" to my son who's yet to open it three days later. The sounds and smells of two teen girls making cookies in the kitchen led to the "Yummy cookies!" clever Snap of my 'cameo' as a banana hugging my daughter. My ingenuity elicited "Silly" from my daughter and when I asked specifically for a cookie delivery, I was left un-read. Finally, I 'Snap-Chatted' the entire 'Cool Fam' group, which garnered my husband's attention...until he forgot.

It was then that I put my foot down. Literally, hopping over to my stash of Christmas stocking Gummy Bears hidden in my dresser drawer across the room, I lost my balance. Hopping one, two, three times on the foot of my bad leg to catch my balance, I recovered with less than cat-like reflexes and not a moment to spare as my crutches hit the floor. Grabbing onto the dresser after the pirouette malfunction, wincing in pain, I seized my balance and Gummy Bears while struggling to catch my breath. Share size my ass! I managed to stuff the goods in my bra before crutching back to my bed with the confidence of a 90-year-old woman.

Red Gummy Bears are my favorite and I was fuming red as the Gummy Bears I shoved in my mouth. What kind of animals am I raising? Where's the empathy? It seemed the world was crumbling around me and what positive change could my children offer if they couldn't even respond to their mother? 

"I need people to stop in and ask what I need. Every hour would be good," I texted my husband. I promptly followed it up with rage and peri-menopausal hormones when he arrived upstairs an hour or so later. Then I called my mother. She assured me there was a delivery on route addressed to me 'Only', with orders not to be shared, commiserating with the pain (of teenagers).


I declined a formal invitation to dinner that night, having dined on my mother's bouquet, my nerves too raw for parenting. It was important my husband bear the burden of the long overdue 'visitation schedule' for mom. Why should I get to have all the parenting fun in quarantine?

I've been generally pleased by the outcome of the 'new and improved' family schedule, every bit about me. 


Two-fifths of the household responds like clockwork (the compliant youngest and my husband, who looks forward to 26 years of marriage). I'll take warm coffee and a lukewarm peanut butter bagel any day over morning starvation! As far as I'm concerned, lunch is over-rated except in a Paris bistro, and my 'Covid-19' pounds would agree now that I'm forcibly starved of exercise. 

Given the busy schedules, I'm honestly thrilled my daughter visits me once a day for more than five minutes to share her 'highs and lows' (she even surprised me with Jade salad rolls for lunch 😍) and equally giddy my 15-year-old son has not missed another Driver's-Ed class since my accident! My 10-year-old even played Scrambled States in bed with me today though I threatened to beat him with a crutch if he kept cheating.

I devoured the fruit bouquet entirely by myself before bedtime. Gluttony never felt so good! 


Schooled in CIA tradecraft, I've resorted to bribery of my sources for every ice pack delivered, rewarding kind service by sharing chocolate desserts I have hoarded from friends and neighbors. In fact, my son just brought me a surprise delivery from my porch! 


God bless the women who've left me clandestine dead-drops. My favorite size and color should sustain me at least another day. There is good in the world tho' some treasures are not for sharing!


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