How We Roll

For almost the entire 20 years MacTroll and I have been together, we haven't spent a lot of the same time living together in the same place. For the first six years we were long distance Rockford to Peoria, Rockford to Champaign, Decatur to Champaign, Decatur to Saginaw, Decatur to Lansing and then boom -- we moved in together when we moved to Falls Church, Va. These were back in the days pre-e-mail for the most part and when long-distance calls were cheap at 20 cents a minute.

When we lived in D.C., we thought we'd see more of each other, and for a while that was true on the weekends. I'd get up and head to the metro at 7 a.m. and three nights a week, I'd be home by 6 p.m. The other two nights though, I'd be at school until somewhere between 8:30 p.m. or 11 p.m., when MacTroll would pick me up. I, on the other hand, was usually home all weekend unless I had to cover a weekend event at the Newseum, where as his job as a free-lance photographer in Washington, D.C. woke him up at all hours and sent him on assignment.

By the time I was working for Arlington County Government and he had moved on from photography and started his own computer company, we rarely saw each other at all. He was traveling M-F three weeks a month and I was working 50+ hour work weeks. So, we decided to move to Champaign. His business was mostly travel and it made good money. It made better money when he started working for the fruit. And I became the woman who could do anything as long as it was part-time. Then we had a baby, and I threw myself into that for a while. There was a very steep learning curve. Even though MacTroll was promoted and cut back on his travel schedule from 3 weeks of travel a month to 2 weeks, I still felt alone a great deal of the time, so I took over my parent group and was doing a bang up job at it. I thought maybe I'd do well working somewhere doing children's programming, and I started taking classes at Parkland in Early Childhood. I also started at weight management.

Three years later, and I'm about to start the most permanent position I've had since I moved here. I'm getting to be an Early Childhood Educator at MMO in the Clownfish room. I'm excited about it. I've loved floating and subbing there the last two years. But I'm worried about how this is going to go in terms of my family life. Because when I work, I tend to throw myself into things and put the work before home life, and let's face it, MacTroll and I always tend to put parenthood before marriage, which feels natural (and easy when your spouse flies in and out and you haven't really spent any time alone together in at least 30-day increments). I've scheduled my day so that I drop X-man off at 7:50 a.m. and report to work by 8:10 a.m. Then I get off at 12:30 p.m., eat lunch and then go to the gym or do the grocery shopping or run errands from 1:15-2:15 p.m. X-man's day ends at 2:15 p.m., and he'll get on the bus to come home. I'm estimating he'll be home by 2:45-3 p.m., which gives me time to shower or do some light housework.

I don't have him signed up for anything in the fall, but he said he does want to go to the Savoy Rec Center on Tuesdays afternoons from 3:45-5 p.m. So, we'll bike over there for as long as the weather will allow us after an after-school snack and he can attend the rotating after-school drop-in Lego Club and the  Rec Zone program, while I do a work out.

It sounds perfect. But what if I show up at the Sports Medicine doctor and he puts me in a cast? Or worse what happens if I have to have surgery on the tendons in my foot or something like that? Now that the fascia is better, I still have issues in the back part of my heel toward the lateral side. I do nothing but walk on it at this point. So it's me mowing the yard or walking around the neighborhood or excavating the Rotary Park site with a shovel. All do my foot in after a short time, and I'm icing and stretching and elevating it for pretty much the rest of the day.

And the worst part is that it's my right foot... If it gets casted... no driving. And how am I going to work with a room full of 2.5 year olds? Or hop up and down the steps at MMO? X-man will have to take the bus to school, too, if that happens.

It's days like today, when I totally hate Dr. Google. All I can do is sit back, relax, and wait to see the Sports Medicine doc next week.

So, see, it doesn't matter if you're a cat or a human over at our house, we're all kind of medically nutso this week.

The saddest part is, I know that my spouse has to keep traveling... so I have the mindset that when he's around to help, it's an exception rather than the norm.