Living With Fibromyalgia

I am a mother to two very young children who were very excited by their visit from the easter bunny.  Very excited.  I used to think being my kids’ easter bunny was going to be so much fun, just like being my kids’ santa claus., and while it is so wonderful to see the joy in their eyes, it is also , extremely difficult to stay up later preparing for it, and getting up earlier than them to finish setting up the easter bunny scene.

This year for Easter, I cheated.  I ordered a pre made Easter Basket from a local video store.  They were the cutest baskets that were plush and able to be used by my kids for other things, and it wasn’t all jam packed with candy either so we didn’t have to have the sugar rush on top of the busyness of the holiday.  I know that I may have been able to do their Easter baskets cheaper on my own, but I needed to take a short cut somewhere. 

We have been doing Easter Egg hunts at local community hunts, and I have been doing more work outside the home, so I needed to cut back somewhere…and I didn’t want to cheat my kids of Easter baskets.  We colored eggs a few days ago and every egg my 1 1/2 year old colored wound up broken, but she had a blast so it didn’t matter, and almost every egg my 3 1/2 year old colored came out orange, his favorite color.  My husband had the incredible hulk fingers and hands because he preferred green and instead of using a spoon or an egg grabber, he used his hands. (okay..I admit it, I used my hands too.)  My husband and I both wound up with more egg color on us than either one of our kids, and it was fun, but even coloring eggs, bending over the kids to help them get their eggs out and then taking them out of their chairs and into the tub…wore me out.  My husband had to finish bath time because I simply could not go anymore.  I never knew coloring Easter eggs was strenuous, but I felt like I had just completed a marathon.  Goes to show, you never really know what you take for granted before you have fibromyalgia, even something as simple as coloring Easter eggs is exhausting.

I had some baking to do for this holiday and had to include my little man because he loves to help his mommy bake.  It doesn’t matter if we are doing a simple boxed cake, or a cheesecake or chocolate chip cookies…whatever it is, he wants to help.  He really does help now, now that he has the hang of it, but before we “mastered mommy and me baking time” it was way more work than I was wanting to deal with.  I am glad I did though because he does quite a bit of the work…and he thinks it’s fun.

We had to go to two places for Easter because my husband’s parents didn’t have anybody going to their house, so we couldn’t have them alone on Easter, and my grandma wanted to do something that evening for Easter, and we had already confirmed lunch with my inlaws…so grandma’s was a few hours afterwards.  In between that, I had to find a way to get my kids to take a nap so we could get through the rest of the day, my son just wanted to play and my daughter wouldn’t sleep, so I took her to the bedroom and laid down with her and must have been more worn out than I thought I was because I fell asleep and was out until my daughter woke up from her nap with mommy.  She loved sleeping with mommy, but I never take naps because if I do, I am up all night, which is what is going on right now.

Now…everybody is asleep…my son in his room finally, and my daughter in hers, my husband is out like a light as well as my two dogs and my cats and I am mad because I want to sleep, but because i was too worn out to stay awake from the hustle and bustle of this busy weekend,  Iwound up taking a nap and now I am wide awake.

I never knew fibromyalgia would cause me to dread some of my most cherished holidays.  Nowadays, Easter and Christmas, Halloween and the fouth of July have become way too much work.  I miss the days where I could bake cookies and party with my friends, and still function happily at all the family gatherings.  I still love the quality family time, but don’t love how I feel tonight.

I know have a house to clean that seems like a tornado moved through it…even though it was cleaned last night.