Somehow, I’ve managed to last almost two years of having a child in my house, constantly picking her up and putting her down, twirling her around and around, without ever tweaking my back or pinching any nerves… until today. Yep, today was the fateful day when I finally picked her up to change her diaper, and I immediately felt a tweak in the lower middle part of my back. At first, I thought, aw, that’s okay. It’s just a little nothing. And then, as I started moving and walking around, I realized…. nope. It’s not nothing. It IS something. Every time I sat down and got up from the sitting position, my lower back would twinge, and it was like a nerve was being pinched sharply. We went out to the Columbus Circle holiday market and when I attempted to lift the stroller, that was when I knew: there was absolutely NO way I was going to be able to help carry this stroller up and down the subway with Chris’s help. It was not happening today. So while we had plans to have dinner in Alphabet City with our friends, we asked them to improvise. Instead, we got takeout from a local spot and had them over at our apartment. It also made it easier with things like letting Pookster roam around after she finished eating, getting her to bed, and not rushing our catch-up with them.

Chris helped me with some stretches to work out the kinks in my back and applied and rubbed in some tiger balm. Our friends were gracious and went with the flow (and insisted I take a strong pain killer, which I happily did after we finished eating!). In the end, I felt better than I did earlier in the day. But this made me realize a few things: one, I’d really like to get back into the groove of hosting friends over for meals once again. I miss having big meals to prepare and cook for and more mouths to feed and experiment on. I also love the idea of having people over for dinner on a Saturday because we have no pressure to leave at a certain time to get Pookster to bed. We’re in the comfort of our own home, so we don’t have to think about transport back home. Two, I am thankful for a life partner who helps me with my stretches and tweaked back (and unfortunately, intimately knows what it feels like). Three, I’m also thankful for friends who can change plans with little notice and be sympathetic to ridiculous, unforeseen situations like this. Life is pretty good, even with a tweaked back.