Grass and Sky

The plumbing saga continues. Now that Land Lady is aware that the pipes are noisy, it's driving her crazy trying to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. So this morning, as I was sitting here with my heating pad draped over my shoulder, getting lost in various internetz stuff, there came a knock at the door. Yet another plumber, come to see if he could figure out what's going on. The end result, I now have a new faucet in the kitchen, with excellent water pressure (the wp dropped off suddenly about a month ago). He also replaced the tub faucet, because the drop thing that switches between shower and tub no longer worked well and didn't send all the water to the shower head. I've been barely getting enough water to wet my hair, and showering has taken much longer than it should. This is not the first guy to look at my shower, but the previous guy just tested the water pressure and said everything was fine. Today's guy saw the problem immediately. I'm curious to see how much improvement there is.

Now on to the obligatory comments about the other ongoing saga in my life, my arm. ( Would you like some cheese with that whine? )

In other news, the kids at work are starting to be able to engage in actual conversations. My current favorite kid for this is R (not quite two and a half).

While changing R's diaper, a good 45 minutes before he was due to go home.

R: Mommy?
Me: (this is a common starting point with all of the toddlers) Where's mommy?
R: Um, I think she on her way.
Me: It's a little early. Do you think she might still be at work?
R (very nonchalantly): No. She on her way.
Me: Is she in the car?
R: No.
Me: Is she on the bus?
R: No.
Me: Is she still at work?
R: No. She leaving the house.

This is the same kid who, if asked where Mommy and Daddy work, will say, "Um, I think in the car."

The other conversation we had today was in the bathroom during potty time.

Me: Do you want to put some pee in the potty?
R: No. I put pee in my diaper.
R (after a pause for thought). My daddy poop in the potty. My mommy poop in the potty. I no poop in the potty.

Very self-aware little guy!

The p.t. exercises went a lot better today. I think the problem yesterday was that I was trying to figure out how to keep my shoulder 'soft' and instead just ended up tensing it up more. 'Soft' is not a very useful descriptive for me, since the shoulder is, by nature, made of hard things like bone. I'm pretty sure the P.T. meant low and relaxed as opposed to tense and hunched up around my ear, so I was trying to drop my shoulder, and only ended up with it low and tense, rather than high and tense, lol. I pretty much managed to fix that today.

I had my first experience with physical therapy this morning. It went well. The P.T. was very gentle in assessing how much movement/pain I have and at this point doesn't want me trying to push through pain for anything. As soon as I reach the point where it hurts, stop. I can get behind that.

He gave me a bunch of exercises to do, all of which are passive (using props to make the arm move, rather than the unhappy muscles themselves). I also have to remember to keep my shoulder 'soft' since I've fallen into a bad habit of hunching up and placing additional strain on the muscles of my neck, especially when I need to reach my hand up for anything. All of this is supposed to soothe the angry muscles while gradually restoring range of motion. I'll go back in two weeks for a reassessment and at that time the P.T. thinks I'll be ready to do some strength exercises.

I liked the place and felt very comfortable with both the environment and the people. I am pleased, despite the fact that my arm is now protesting all that attention rather loudly.