Ouch

Well that's silly. The entry I posted last week sometime has a June date on it, which is when I started a draft. I'm not sure how to change the date, but no big deal. :) 

Jen has gone up to bed after a fun (day-before) Labor Day cookout today with her family. Nate and his cousins had a blast playing together. It's nice that Nate's now getting to the point where he and his 10-month older cousin are interacting and speaking with each other instead of crying anytime the other takes a toy away.

So Jen's up in bed and I'm laying in a strange sideways position on the couch since sitting still causes my sciatica pain to act up. What an odd thing chronic pain is. It's never something I really thought about. Occasionally I'd get a pain in my back or sleep funny and wake up with a stiff neck, but then it would go away and usually Advil helped it. When you have a pain that radiates from your lower back down to your ankle anytime you sit and no painkillers really help it, you'll do a lot and change a lot of habits to get it to stop. Like standing all day. I started to have pain in late April or May and once I realized how impossible it was to concentrate on work sitting at my desk, I requested a standing-height desk. That has definitely helped (and though I was more tired the first month, I'm now totally used to standing all day).  Jen and I used to sit together on the couch all the time at night to relax and watch a little TV but now sometimes I have to stretch out on the other couch in the living room or lay on the floor. It has definitely gotten better but it's not totally gone.  I also no longer sit on the T. Those seats are not friendly. I'm one of the annoying people standing with an available seat in front of me.  SORRY!

Thankfully it is better or the 2 1/2-hour each way that I drove yesterday to go to a great friend from college's wedding would have been excruciating. There were times in July/August when I dreaded driving the 10 minutes to the chiropractor because not only was sitting in the car hideously painful, getting out of the car was almost worse. That part has definitely gotten better. I'm confident it'll be gone eventually. Thanks to stretching and yoga, massage and the chiropractor.

So Nate and I went to his first wedding yesterday. :) I have proof that he wore a tie (for about 5 minutes) and looked very handsome while he did. Even while making a silly monkey face.

The wedding was at 3 and we enjoyed the reception until about 7:30, which was after the cake. Nate wanted to stay for the cake. :) After the cake we packed up and put Nate's PJs on for the ride home.  He told me he had a fun time.  Then this morning when I asked him the best part of the wedding, he said it was the orange juice.  For some reason the orange juice was really memorable.  Possibly because he got to have it in an adult glass and not a brightly-colored plastic cup.

We have no plans tomorrow, which is one of the best things.  Maybe Nate and I will bake something for Momma, or maybe we'll all go for a walk at Wompatuck and bring a picnic. Maybe we'll just lounge around and do nothing. Maybe we'll sort through some of Nate's toys to put away the ones he has outgrown and get rid of any broken ones.  I like days with no plans!