My mother has battled with kidney stones since I can remember. I can vividly recall the agony she was in, when Dad drove us from Denver to Colorado Springs, where I would stay with my Uncle’s family while Mom got medical treatment. It was pretty horrifying. I was three.

Off and on, since then, Mom has dealt with varying levels of stone pain. Three surgeries and countless days and nights of writhing, sweating, and heaving in pain. So, when B started groaning last night and told me it was a stone, I had a good idea of what we were in for–better or worse.

Thor had been very excited about starting his new school, so I didn’t get him to sleep until after eleven, and that required sitting in his bed until he succumbed. I came downstairs and thought I would give my new Wii EA Active Sport personal training thingie a try, and did a short workout while I waited for the laundry to dry. That’s pretty nifty, by the way, and I’ll write about it in another post.

I was on my way to bed at midnight, but B was already hurting so much he couldn’t lie still. At one, I gave up and got up. I couldn’t lie there while he hurt, and I couldn’t do anything to help him, other than just leave him alone and offer him water now and then. I figured if I got up, I could do something useful while he suffered.

So, I started prepping for our Tuesday night dinner of Baked Ziti.

I got my pasta cooked, and my onion chopped before B said it was bad enough to warrant the emergency room (and this is a man who can take a lot of pain, people), but we had to wait for my mother to arrive to keep an eye on Thor before we could go. I didn’t think I could manage to help B, who was hurting so badly he was having a hard time staying upright, and Thor, who would have been a very unhappy zombie child in such wee hours. While I waited for Mom to come, since I was already dressed and had opened my ground beef packet (I buy the tubes of 97/4 beef–I like it lean), I went ahead and browned my beef in the onions I had sauteed while the pasta was cooking. And by the time I had finished that and put everything in ziplock baggies, we had agreed that an ambulance was in order. (Thank God! And thank God for 9-1-1.)

Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Lane cooked while her husband’s kidneys tried to pass a rock.

To my credit, I knew I was going to be exhausted today, and I needed to cook the beef before it went bad.

Mom arrived just ahead of the paramedics, and she went up to watch Thor while I headed to the hospital, arriving ahead of the ambulance. B’s parents were en route to meet me at the hospital because I needed to be home by 7 to get Thor to his first day of school.

Thankfully, the ER was empty, so B was well cared for, and drugged into a happy quiet. I’m sure our neighbors think we’re into some pretty kinky stuff from the loud sounds emanating from our bedroom last night. Kinky like crucifixion, the rack, drawing and quartering, and Draino cocktails. You know. Your average slap, tickle, and riding crop.

B’s parents arrived as he was being discharged, and it was all of us back to our tiny home. Two grown up bodies and one little person fit tidily in this space. We did not bring our sofa, only our loveseat, and we do not have another adult sized chair, only Thor’s little straightback and his saucer chair. Thus, five grown up bodies and one little person make for some embarrassment as a hostess, but there were bigger fish to fry.

My mom left to go to work, bless her. B’s parents split up, his dad going to fill B’s prescriptions, while his mother stayed to look after B. I got Thor dressed (and he was so dapper it hurt) and took him to his first day at his new school. He was a trooper, even though he was clearly striving to be brave.

Back to the house, since I hadn’t slept a wink since Sunday, I went to take a nap in Thor’s bed. Much like John Taylor’s bite of tuna sandwich (that was for the Duranies), it was not to be. The call that ruined everything came from the school. Some administrative error had placed Thor in the wrong classroom, and there is still a possibility that we may have to move him to another school entirely. Stay tuned for that rant if it needs writing. I gave up and went to work.

I do love my boss, though. Actually love her. She sat with family at my wedding. Love. And she called me Gorgeous even though I was much less that, and much more Gorgon.

The good news is that Thor liked school, and that he had a friend who rode the bus with him. His after school teacher/bus driver reported that he came out of the building hand-in-hand with this little girl, looking cute as could be. Of course Thor can’t remember her name or tell me anything other than that, “Yeah, she wasn’t Ba-loo,” who is another friend of his. He thinks girls are gross right now. They have cooties. I did not teach this to him, but am happy to let the feeling persist for as long as possible. (Side note: Abigail, Annabel and Autumn are not girls, he said. They are good people. Sadly, every other female who is not a mama or a grandmother is gross.)

We got home and I started the rest of dinner. It turned out to be a very good dish! It was cheesy, but not runny, and the spices were just right. I divided the leftovers into 3 packets and have frozen them to serve as side dishes with other entrees.

I did two more loads of laundry, including the sheets, did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, helped Thor with homework, wrote an introductory email to his teacher, fed the chickens, slopped the hogs, scrubbed the castle stairs, wrote an unedited blog entry about what I cooked for dinner and to what success (great, both boys ate it) and am now allowed to go to the ball. The ball being bed. Can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.