That one corner of the bedroom

The one near the door, near the ceiling. I've been spending a lot of time looking at it. There is a hint of doorway over there, the top, of course, an iron and some half-Muppets on the bookshelf. There are the tickets to the dance performance we opted out of, tacked to the wall above the desktop. The desktop computer itself. The postcard from the Kunsthaus exhibit on Mexican art that I can finally take down because we finally went to see it on Saturday.

The corner. My WhatNots are soundlessly serenading me. Or just re-enacting the faces they see me making as I try to stand up these days.

Ah, Saturday. It started well enough, and ended with me grunting in pain on a taxi ride home from the train station, when I couldn't take the leg and hip and thigh cramping anymore. Let's just say my back is back. With a vengence. At least the herniated disc is.

So I am back in bed for about 48 hours now, feeling every bit as useless as I did last time this year and slightly more pissed off since all that pilates-at-home was supposed to buy me out of ever feeling this way again. I can't even say what did it this time. The rocking A in my lap before her nap? Sleeping with her on the memory foam bed in her room? I just know that about 2 hours after waking up from feeling mostly okay and thinking my slight back irritation was finally clearing up, I was laying down in the entrance to a menswear dressing room in downtown Zurich, wincing and swearing under my breath while trying to assure the saleswomen that I wasn't about to... I don't know what they were most worried might happen. Throw up? Yeah, that would be what I'd be worried about if I was working there. Or someone just up and dying in the dressing room.

"No, no, I'm fine (not going to hurl on anything here). Its just my back." Granted, anyone who has has disc injuries before knows that this is a ridiculous statement - the use of the word "just." It is excruciating. It ranks right up there with giving birth pain. It is paralyzing.

So, I'm back to spending my time observing a lot. Which has been interesting this time around, because I've observed (heard) M being a spectacular father. In a way I didn't know he could be. He's been funny, and warm and really rolled with the punches with A. With grace. With a grace that I have yet to find, and in this it has been really good that I am not in the picture and keeping my mouth shut as much as possible. It is hard not to be a back-seat parent, but the rewards of letting them have their own relationship has been magical. And I'm learning some things I would never hard learned otherwise. M is much more relaxed about A not following orders right away. And it doesn't mean all her discipline falls by the wayside. This is a really big lesson for me - to see the results of M's approach. And to learn from it.

I'm feeling better finally, but right now, as M and A are making dinner in the kitchen, I'm laying back again. I'm trying to remember just to observe, to absorb, to let them be and to learn.

My bed, my foot, my new inspirational-stop-worrying-about-doing-more-than-being mirror art. Kids' wax window crayons are surprisingly multi-purposeful.