Falling Apart

My family is unraveling at the moment.  I had knee surgery on Friday after a long 5 months of waiting. My knee was in pretty rough shape, and will likely require one more surgery to make it right, but in the meantime, this will hopefully improve the pain to tolerable.  While I am out of commission, my family is kind of falling to pieces.

My husband is trying to be the mom, and is drowning in the housework.  He cannot for the life of him figure out how to get anything done while holding a child or how to redirect them to go play independently, so he is either holding somebody OR getting something done.  Which, as you moms know, is a recipe to get nothing done.

My oldest daughter is attaching herself to me like a limpet.  She won't let me out of her sight without thinking that I'm leaving.  If someone tries to take her away from me, she screams hysterically.  And the amount of worrying over me that she is doing is really sad to see in a two year old.  After I put ice on, she touches my knee and tells me it is too cold and I need a blankie for it.  If I walk with one crutch instead of two, she comes flying after me with the other.  Where is my brace?  Put a pillow under it while I'm sitting.  Go sit down.  She even "fixes" it with cream because she is pretty sure that is what the doctor does whenever I have an appointment.  She rubs cream all over my leg while adorably seriously saying "There, that's better.  I you doctor, I make you better.  I fix."  Yes, incredibly cute, but way too heavy for a two year old.

And the baby.  Well, she is taking this hard.  When I was pregnant with her, I was in and out of the hospital for a few months.  My older daughter would be very cool to me when I came home, and attach herself to whoever had been caring for her.  The baby is doing the same, which is predictable because she is the same age as my older daughter was.  It doesn't hurt my feelings.  I understand why she is doing it, and that it is a normal reaction from a one year old when there is this kind of upheaval in her world.  In a week or two, life will be back to normal, and we'll be back in our groove.  What pisses me off is the way certain other people are reacting to this behavior of hers.  There is some barely contained gloating which makes me want to fly off the handle.  I can't say any more about that, but oh, I want to.  I even typed it out, then deleted it.  And then typed it out again, then deleted it again.

Both of my girls have also been behaving pretty badly in general.  Their dad is at a loss, because he is having to deal with it, and he doesn't really understand that this is reactive behavior, and while it needs to be addressed, it doesn't REALLY need to be addressed all that strongly.  It will go away when life goes back to normal.  He is upset, they are upset, I am upset.  This is our life right now.