I am not proud of these days.

These are the days when I wander inside myself, knowing there is something I should be doing, something I want to do. But I can’t figure out what that is, cannot identify what I want. I am lost inside my head.

The children are hungry. They ask for a snack and I allow them to forage for whatever they want. I have no idea when was the last time they ate. Maybe they had some cereal a while ago? Yes, maybe.

They ask me a question. I know they are asking me something, know I should answer. I say “yes.” And then they are doing something that is not allowed and I tell them to stop and they look at me, confused. “But you said we could.” Did I? I guess so.

Dishes are stacked on the counter. The dishwasher is full of clean dishes, and I know I should empty it, know it would take just a few minutes. But I don’t. I don’t care. I just don’t, and dirty dishes multiply.

I cannot engage, cannot respond, and most certainly cannot initiate. The kids become clingy, seek my attention, misbehave. I know it is because they want me. But the more they want, the more obvious it becomes to me that I am inadequate. I can’t be needed. I turn on another movie and hope it will hold their attention for a while. So they don’t notice that I cannot pay attention.

I know now what this is. This is not laziness. It is not depression (though there is that). This is multiple sclerosis. While it slowly paralyzes my body, MS also paralyzes my mind. I cannot focus. I am distracted. Didn’t I want to make a phone call? Yes. To whom? I don’t know. Lost. I cannot make it through a recipe. Somewhere in the middle I realize I have no idea how to get to the end. I try to remember a word. Not a difficult word. But I cannot find it, anywhere. I need to tell someone my address. I tell them my old address. My in-laws’ address.

Meals lost. Words lost. Home lost. And I do not have the energy to care.

I am lost in my mind.

Fortunately these days are not frequent. The kids don’t regularly have to parent themselves and each other. Jeff doesn’t come home to apathetic disaster every day. Many days I remember that laundry needs folded, and I even have the motivation to do it. Most days I can attend to conversation without forgetting what I am discussing. Many days I can accomplish. I can care. But there are days when all I can do is wander from room to room, inside myself.

It is called lassitude. It is a form of mental and physical fatigue unique to my disease. And Jeff assures me it is much more apparent to me than it is to anyone else. He assures me that I am not dangerous to the children or to myself, and that it does not matter if I’ve haven’t found the motivation to shower or take the kids to the park or to eat anything but ice cream. He says that it’s okay. That I’m okay.

I tell him it is not okay. I do not want to be this wife, this mother, this person.

He tells me to forgive myself.

I can’t.

Because on days like this, I can’t find a self to forgive.

It’s not an excuse.

Actually, it is.

But I’m not posting today. I’ve got a couple of posts that I think I kind of like, and they’re waiting to be finished. But not today.

I’m having an MS relapse. Or attack. Whatever you want to call it. I had to start another round of IV steroids last night. And the relapse is making me tired. So tired that it is difficult to imagine moving. And the steroids make me not sleep. And every time I move I get an electric jolt that feels like somebody attached cables to my head and is trying to jump-start me. It hurts. A lot. It makes me black out a little, sometimes. And my balance is more than a bit questionable. I tip, I fall, I trip over the boys. My legs are bruised. And Jeff has a crazy schedule this week and won’t be home to speak of until Sunday.

No, no posting. Except I don’t want to not post because I don’t want you to think I’m dropping out again. No. But reality dictates. I have to focus on the kids and on sleeping and the rest will wait. I have to wait.

And I hope you’ll wait too.

It is no secret that I hurt my back, as I have been whining to everyone within earshot about my weakened state. The ultimate diagnosis was a pinched sciatic nerve. The treatment: a six-day steroid burst. And so it is that I find myself hopped up on roids and contemplating the evil that is GNC. This is my story.

Day One– I hurt. I hurt so bad I am sick to my stomach. Steroids, the doctor said? Yes, I will take. I will take anything that will help. Even if the package insert says that side effects may include: fluid retention, congestive heart failure, bone fractures, pancreatitis, abdominal distension, increased sweating, impaired wound healing, headache, irritability, hyperglycemia, and decreased ability to fight infection. I do not care if all of these things happen; I will take the steroids.

Day Two– Back is maybe a little better. And I am happy. Very, very happy. Almost irrationally so. My husband (a medical type) says this is a steroid-induced euphoria. He’s a fun-hater. Life is beautiful. Everyone is beautiful. Even fun-haters.

Day Three– Cleaned my baseboards. All of them. And cleaned some other stuff for about two hours. This is unusual. This is more than I accomplish in a normal month. It strikes me that I am experiencing a steroid high. I am like the Sammy Sosa of housekeeping. But I’ll take it. Because my baseboards? They look amazing.

Day Four– Crap. I missed a pill today. The insert said missing a pill could be life-threatening. I hope I don’t die. Not sleeping very much. Up at 5am. And am very puffy. I’m not sure I’ve peed in the past 12 hours. Also: sweaty. And my heart is kind of racing a little. Let’s just be honest: I’m a swollen, damp, jumpy mess who’s worried about kicking off any minute. But, damn, my house is clean.

Day Five– Sleep is entirely unnecessary. I folded and put away two loads of laundry before I even thought about coffee this morning: stunning. Irritability seems likely, too. Husband may or may not be bearing the brunt of this. Part of me wants to scream, “It’s not me! It’s the drugs!” But most of me just wants to scream. I think Jeff said something about “roid rage” under his breath. Is it over yet?

Day Six– It’s over. I made it. No bones broken, no tuberculosis infections, and I seem to be free of pancreatitis. I guess this is good. Need to shed a few pounds in water weight and sleep for about 16 hours. Oh, and apologize to my husband. I think we both survived.

At least my back feels better.

Sometimes motherhood hurts. I’m not speaking metaphorically or spiritually or anything. No literary device. I mean it physically hurts.

Like growing a human being inside your own human being: this hurts. And birthing them? No news here: it hurts. Cracked and bleeding nipples from new breastfeeding? Hurt. Mastitis? Also hurts. Having a handful of hair ripped from your scalp by a baby? Painful. Being knocked in the head with a cast-iron skillet by a curious toddler? Not so good. (Yes, this happened to me. Long story.) Lip split open on impact with a laughing child’s skull? Yeah. It all heals. But it all hurts. I’m not going to buffer that statement by saying, “But it’s worth every second of the pain because I’d go through anything for these little angels because I am the Best and Most Selfless Mommy Ever.”  I’m not so good at the Merry Martyr stuff.

Because today, this week, I hurt. My back? It. Hurts.

Last night I asked Jeff to ice it, but then he had to touch it to put the ice on it and then he had to peel me off the ceiling because didn’t he know that it hurt?! and then I swore at him for a good 10 minutes for not being sensitive to my pain. (He may or may not deserve a medal for living with me.) I cannot sleep for more than a short time and I cannot find a comfortable position in which to just be and I’m walking around half-upright, half-not because my back will not straighten. This is not a good look for me, by the way.

Today motherhood hurts so badly that I am going to the doctor. Who will tell me that I have a pinched nerve. Who will tell me not to lift anything , which is the dumbest advice one can give to a mother. And I will come home and promptly lift my 26-pound toddler because there is no other choice.

But the doctor will also give me a prescription for muscle relaxers and maybe some steroids and maybe some narcotics and after the kids are all tucked safely into bed I will take them and my back will probably still hurt but for the next few hours I will not care. Tomorrow I’ll get up and do it all over again and it will still hurt but I’ll have the bedtime medications to look forward to and maybe in another week it won’t hurt anymore. And that’s just the way it is right now, no martyrdom intended.

Yesterday was like Monday, except it was Tuesday.

To put it all in perspective, my Monday was especially heinous because Jeff had to go back to work after a week of vacation. And then, because it was just a Bad Day that felt like Monday, I had another Monday the very next day. That meant I had two double-plus-sucky Mondays in a row. Sometimes life isn’t fair.

But, back to yesterday. The Monday-that-was-really-Tuesday. By 5:00 (in the evening) I still hadn’t brushed my teeth. If, by the way, you’re a stay-at-home-parent who doesn’t sometimes not brush his or her teeth, do not feel obligated to tell me this in the comments because I already feel like enough of a loser. Anyway. No toothbrushing. Partially due to lack of opportunity, and largely due to bad attitude.

But at five, I got religion and decided to brush. Sadly, though, my 17-month-old is obsessed with toothbrushes and snagged mine before I could stop him. This is the same kid who has had bright green mucous oozing from every orifice and a rattling cough for about 12 days now. This is the kid who, while playing with his blocks yesterday, had an 11-inch string of snot hanging from his nose to the floor. This is the same kid who sneezed up some alarming ectoplasm all over his afternoon snack an hour earlier.

So my snotty kid grabbed my toothbrush and promptly stuck it in his mouth and I could not wrestle it away from him. He had a pretty serious relationship with that thing. By the time I got it away from him, it was dripping and I didn’t have another toothbrush so I just shrugged my shoulders and ran it under some hot water and brushed away. Gross, yes, but it seemed like the lesser of two evils and actually fit the rest of my day pretty well.

But then. Then the day turned around entirely. Jeff came home from work early.

This meant I did not have to scrape together a scrumptious dinner of leftovers for three starving boys by myself. This meant I did not have to wrestle all of them to a Cub Scout meeting alone. This meant I did not have to dig deep and find the stamina to get them all clean and into bed without a partner.

And, mostly, this meant that I got to watch Jeff’s face when I told him that right after our oozing and coughing son molested my toothbrush, he grabbed Jeff’s and did the exact same thing to it. That his tootbrush actually had mucous hanging from it.  His reaction was predictably priceless.

My petty misery? Yes, she loves company.

You know that song by The Carpenters? “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down?” Yeah, I’m kind of living the “rainy Mondays send me into a homicidal rage” version today.

I woke up in a perfectly fine mood. But sometime shortly after breakfast, I lost my grip on “peace” when an infuriating series of events sent me into orbit. I’ll spare you the details. Just know that bent glasses, vomit, and stinky feet were involved.

Things started to look better after a (long) phone call to my sister who, by nature of her irrepressibly loose grip on anything too surly and her ridiculous perkiness, kind of turned me around. Things improved more after a trip to Target (oh! the psychology of shopping: Wal-Mart depresses me; Target cheers me). And even more after an in-depth discussion of animal puke (again with the vomit!) with Evan. Turns out that snakes barf in a long, straight line and cat vomit is fluorescent green. Who knew? He’s unclear on the appearance of dinosaur vomit, but speculates that dinosaur extinction was caused by a massive outbreak of some kind of throwing-up illness.

A good chat with Evan always improves my mood.

But then Caleb and I had a Battle Royale regarding a dirty diaper. It did not end well.

Things were again brighter after a lunch consisting of an enormous bowl of leftover scalloped potatoes. Is there any ailment known to humankind that can’t be helped by homemade scalloped potatoes? Well, besides cardiovascular disease.  Anyway, the potatoes made me happy.

I’m labile, to say the least. Not sure where this day is going. Jeff has absolutely no idea what he’ll be coming home to this afternoon.

Actually, he probably does. Poor guy.