the difference: you can give a toddler a time out

My mom's surgery last Tuesday went well; the doctor said it was rare to see flaps around a hole like that fall closed during surgery and that was a great sign. She was groggy for a few days, but diligently sat in her chair--for the first few days, anyway.

She has to sit where the purple scarf is (the seat is shaped like bicycle seat and only slightly comfier), knees on the blue pads and face in the white horseshoe-shaped pillow. The purple-and-pink thing is a hand mirror, and taped under the pillow is my high school locker mirror (they allow her to sort of see the television). She has another pillow apparatus to help her sleep face-down, too. That really sucks--she pretty much didn't sleep at all for five days.

The mirror that came with the chair is all scratched and warped. But they sent us a new one yesterday.

As much as I yell about staying in the chair, I can't imagine having to be face down for nearly 24 hours a day. Yesterday I sat on the floor with the laptop for four hours and my neck was killing me. The pain meds prescribed for my mom weren't so much for the eye, but for her aching back and sore neck. Poor woman.

But that was last week. As of Sunday, she still has to sit in the chair but can sleep on her side, so both of us are getting some much-needed rest. She's also feeling a lot better. However that means she is itching to move around and do stuff. I had been up late and overslept this morning, and in a few hours she managed to do laundry, make puri (Indian fried bread) from scratch, make sevayian (Indian sweet dish made with angelhair pasta), chop the veggies I got from the grocery store and scrape the stickers off our new front and storm doors and window. She swears she kept her head down the whole time.

About 45 minutes ago she left the chair to use the bathroom and I heard the sound of chopping spinach. I got my brother on the phone to give her a good scolding and she sat back down. Then I went to finish chopping the spinach and hadn't been in the kitchen two minutes before she was out in the driveway dragging in the empty garbage cans from the curb. All this is making me question my mothering capabilities; if I can't wrangle one grown woman, how the heck am I going to raise children?

I'm delighted that my mom is feeling better. Every four hours when she takes off the eye patch for drops, she can see a tiny bit more. She says it's more like a curtain opening from the top down. We see the doctor again on Thursday. Hopefully we can say goodbye to the chair very soon.

In the meantime, we've been flooded with so many good vibes, cards, flowers and presents that the living room looks like a gift shop. It's wonderful to see just how many people love my mom almost as much as we do. I won't attempt to post photos of all the flowers, but I had to include this, which is so huge I put my mom's iPod in the shot to show just how ginormous it is.

I'm thinking they miss her back at the office.