Motorin'

Last night, I drove my car.

That doesn't sound as exciting as it was. You see, I hadn't driven a car before that for nearly three weeks. The last time I'd left the house on my own was December 1st, when I went to get my car's emissions inspection done so I could go to the DMV the next day. In the waiting room, another lady gave me a commiserating look and noted that I looked "ready to pop". As we all know, I did just that the next day and now we have B.

Demerol dictated that I not get behind the wheel for about the next two weeks. And hey, if you're one of those people who just said, "Ooooh, Demerol!" I would remind you that you generally have to be in enough pain to need Demerol before you can (legitimately, anyway) get it, so it wasn't that much of a joy.

I shook off the Demerol as soon as I could without being in too much needless pain, and soon began to dream, in a torn way, of picking up my keys and leaving the house. I mean, it's hard to watch other people do the things you've grown to think of as your job (in the absence of a job outside the home) like the grocery shopping or a drugstore run. On the other hand, it's difficult for me to leave the baby on one floor of the house while I go briefly to a different floor to grab something. When Tom's mom was here, she offered to take the baby downstairs one morning so I could grab a little more sleep (that was the night that she was wide awake in the middle of the night and we had a great time playing, but that didn't get mama much sleep) and even though I really needed a lot more, the best I could do was one half-hearted hour and a half long nap before I followed my offspring downstairs.

I had a momentary impulse to drive the car back into the garage after I'd pulled it out into the street, but I told myself that she was with her father and fine, and that I had a cell phone with me so I could be reached. Plus, we were out of, oh, everything.

So, I did it. I drove, I shopped, I returned, and she was fine. And we have milk, to boot.