Bad Days are OK!

     I have fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain in your muscles, ligaments and tendons, as well as fatigue and multiple tender points — places on your body where slight pressure causes pain. ---MayoClinic.com

    Having fibromyalgia and kids at the same time is... well, "interesting" is the first word that comes to mind.  "Pain-filled" is a close second, though.  It's interesting because you never know, upon waking, what kind of day you will have.  And, to be completely honest, with small children in the house, it's completely irrelevant how YOUR day is going.  You have to keep pushing so that THEY can make it through the day with a good day.  Pain-filled is pretty self-explanatory.  I'm a hugger.  I hug my kids all the time... and it hurts to hug them most the time.

     I wake up each morning when my husband leaves the house.  As he pointed out, I've always been a bit of a morning person.  I listen to the kids playing in their room as I try to get my muscles moving.  Some mornings this might take two minutes; other mornings might take an hour or longer.  I systematically stretch each part of my body while I'm lying down- toes up to ankles, knees, back, neck, even my ears get some kind of movement applied to them.  Skipping even one part will result in a crash later in the day.  Sadly, this delay in my schedule makes my morning personality a lot less obvious. 

    My days run pretty smoothly for the most part.  It'll become obvious within the first hour I'm up as to how active I can be for the day.  For the most part, if it's a good day, I can function normally- even if a bit slower than I'd like.  If it's a bad day, it's like swimming upstream against a heavy current while yelling "OW!" under my breath the entire time.  I actually hobble when I walk.  I have to pick and choose what I spend my energy on.  If I'm going to make peanut butter sandwiches on the kids for lunch, I'll have to forgo loading a second load of laundry into the washer today.  If I'm going to pop a frozen casserole into the oven, I might as well not make the beds.  It's an exchange that I've learned to live with- even if I'm not entirely loving it.

     Then there are the children.  My kids know that "Mommy hurts".  They're pretty gentle when they hug me or lean against me.  They don't really understand why we can't go to the park every sunny day or don't understand why I can't play catch with them in the yard- but they do know that it's because "Mommy hurts."

     And the acceptance from my kids that I'm not going to be one of those Moms- you know, the "Super Moms" hurts more than the muscle pain does.  I really want to be a "Super Mom."

     But, more than anything, I want to be able to say, "It's ok that I've had a bad day today.  Tomorrow will be better."