guess where i’ve been six out of the last twelve days?

• a) to an urban spa
• b) to yoga class
• c) to our city’s new anthropologie (did i mention that i like that store?)
• d) to the pediatrician’s office

sadly, the answer is d.

reasons inc lude:

• the monkey has sinus problems
• the monkey has a double ear infection
• the bird has a double ear infection
• the bird needs an ear re-check

and now on to my personal failure as a mother…

during a well-earned time-out for the monkey, i opened the bathroom door (yes, the bathroom door. the monkey’s upstairs room is just too long of a haul with a kicking, screaming child) because he was pounding it with his fists. i simply asked him to stop all of this pounding and closed the door. on his pinky finger.

the finger looked broken, and the monkey was hysterical for an hour. my car practically drove itself to the familiar destination, where our doctor looked upon us with pity and said, “wow. i feel like we’re really getting to know each other!”

the finger isn’t broken, so after the doc “buddy taped” the pinky to the forth finger, we were free to go and live our lives in (hopefully) less dramatic, better behaved, and more careful fashion.

i’ve not yet completely processed the whole episode but i did notice two things during my own personal motherhood hell. first, as soon as the injury happened, my head was flooded with this message: “don’t fall into the black hole of guilt. that will not help anyone.” i also observed that even the slightest little joke about my role in this injury would have sent me over the edge. but the doctor was very compassionate toward both the monkey and me. this is just one reason why i love her.

before i had kids, i loved to travel. i delighted in frequent flyer miles. now i’m a frequent flyer at laurelwood pediatrics. shouldn’t i get some sort of a prize? free clarithromycin?