i am happy to report that the atlas and elizabeth house is more peaceful. atlas is adjusting to his splint and we are adjusting to our new slower mode of life.

after the first day, which was horrible, and the second day, during which he tried to remove his splint every time i went upstairs for more than a second (i finally asked a neighbor to come and sit with him so i could take a shower), he seems much more tolerant of it.

astonishingly, a week of inactivity has also been tolerable for him. he seems neither terribly depressed nor terribly saucy. i have been giving him lots of massages and playing brain/mental games with him and i think he is enjoying all the attention.

he is not, however, a very good invalid. he keeps stomping around with his splint and running around the living room and whenever i decide we’ve walked enough and try to turn around, he tries to tug me in the opposite direction. we went to the park for his potty walk the other day (it’s practically right next door) and he kept trying to run off into the field.

the hardest parts of this involve the stairs and the bed.

after two attempts to sleep downstairs on the couch, both of which worked well for atlas (besides the fact that he doesn’t like to sleep on the couch at night – nights are for beds) but not so well for me (the second night, he slowly took over more and more of the couch until my entire lower half was dangling off of it and i decided i might as well sleep on the floor), he is allowed upstairs once a day at bedtime. if he has to go outside in the middle of the night, we sleep on the couch for the remainder of the night and do not go upstairs again.

after much trial and error, i finally figured out a way to make getting on and off the bed safer and easier by creating stairs out of pillows. what does atlas do? he ignores my stairs and leaps over them as usual. this is not so bad when getting on the bed, but it is terrible when getting off. twice, he got around me and leaped and landed and his face instantly contorted in pain. now, i have to be very stern and make him wait and lead him off. (i tried lifting him off the first couple of nights. let’s just say that didn’t go well.)

going up the stairs seems fine. it’s going down that’s the problem. he does not know how to go down slowly. i tried carrying him down a couple of times. (again, let’s just say that didn’t go well at all.) the best way i can describe my current method is to say that he tries to race down normally while i stand in front of him and block him and hold him back by pushing on his chest. this does slow him down, but it takes him forever to start because he does not understand what i am doing and why i am in his way. i actually think it would work the best if he sat on my lap and i slid down the stairs, but he refuses to try this.

of course, there are blessings in everything. i am learning to ask for help and support and to receive it. i have a rich and warm community. and i am appreciating the opportunity to slow down and take care of atlas in a new way.

last night at bedtime, atlas was lying next to me on the bed – quietly snoring, his tummy rumbling, his head on my pillow, his cast resting on my heart and whacking me every once in a while – and i was overcome with gratitude and love.