How are we going to do this?

Well, here I am.

I'm home alone with a broken ankle. Okay, I'm not totally alone. Andrew is here with me. But Mom went home this morning, and William isn't due home from summer camp for another two hours. Andrew's great and all, but he's not really much help around the house. It is All Me right now.

It's a little scary.

Here's my set-up: I'm sitting in the big arm chair in the family room, with my foot propped up on a pillow on the ottoman. Andrew is sitting in the Peg Perego stroller next to the ottoman. He's not a big fan of having to hang out in the stroller, but it reclines, so it's his only option for getting a nap right now. I can't stand up and lift him in and out of the Pack'n'Play or the swing, so the stroller is it. I've got the laptop here, with the house phone and the cell phone next to me. On the advice of my friend Kimberly, Mom bought me an apron with deep pockets, so I can carry things when I'm crutching around. We put a plastic tub of diaper-changing supplies behind my chair, so I can get out and change Andrew on the floor; I've got a footstool back there, too, so I can hopefully get up and down by using that. I can push the stoller into the kitchen when I'm on crutches, as long as I don't get too ambitious or move too fast. And I think I can get down on the ottoman and get Andrew out of the stroller and down into the bouncy seat by the coffee table. This will be much easier once I can put some weight on my foot, but I think I can manage until then.

Everything's just going to be a little more time-consuming and complicated than it usually is.

Whew. I remember feeling a little bit (okay, a lot) of cabin fever after I got home from the hospital after having a c-section. A few days at home, and I was ready to get out again. I have now been inside my house for almost a week. I've actually been housebound longer than I was when I was post-op then. Because at least then I could go out and get the mail. I'm not about to navigate our front stairs on crutches. So, here I am. It's miserably hot out there, so I guess I'm not missing much. I'm feeling a little guilty because I had hoped to do all this stuff with William this summer, to make up for lying on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet for so much of last summer. But this summer, I'm just stuck in the house.

A couple of friends have offered to come by tomorrow to visit, and I'm going to take them up on that. Mary Clare actually offered to come by early this afternoon, but given that today was her first (half) day back at work after finishing maternity leave, I really wanted her to go home and be with her family. I think I can make do until Diane brings William home. Then we'll wait for David to come home from work.
Tomorrow will be another adventure. It will be my first day without Mom here to help me get up and about. We'll see how it goes. What's really scaring me is the thought of next week. Next week, William doesn't have summer camp. He'll be home all day with me and the baby. It will be me with my bum leg and the baby who can't sit up by himself yet but weighs at least 15 pounds and my bouncing-off-the-walls four-year-old. Good times, huh?

I'm still feeling grateful that I didn't have to have surgery, and I'm still relieved that Andrew didn't get hurt. But I'm starting to worry about how long I'm going to have to stay off my right foot...how long I'm going to have to do all this. If I knew it wasn't much longer, I think I could feel better about coping in the short run. As David said, we know this is temporary. I just don't know how temporary, and that's the problem. Y'all know me. I like to have a Plan. Plans need more definite paramaters than this. You know, like an end date. This is my OCD kicking in, I guess.

But hey, at least Andrew finally fell asleep in the big stroller. Hopefully we can make this work...at least until we don't have to anymore.