Lesson Learned

I have freakish feet.

Now if THAT doesn't just grab you and leave you wanting to read more, I don't know what will. I just don't know.

So. Freakish feet. They are structurally odd. My second AND third toe are longer than my big toe. That's not normal.

Not only does it allow to perform amazing feats (ha! feats! get it?), such as picking up pencils from the floor - and then signing my name on things, or, you know, typing this blog post ALL WITH MY TOES, it also leads to a lot of pain when I run distance.

Luckily, I'm horribly out of shape right now and haven't broken through the three-mile barrier. It usually doesn't start acting up - and by that, I mean, causing me to feel like I'm being knifed in the foot with every step - until I start doing runs of 10 miles or longer. Which is not happening anytime soon.

Anyway, I also get these odd foot cramps, where it feels like my arch is collapsing. When this happens, I can't stand up. Why, yes, I WAS the one sitting on the floor clutching my foot and moaning amidst the racks in the middle of Macy's one time.

It usually happens if I've been wearing shoes with no arch support all day. Like flip flops. Can't wear them for longer than it takes me to get from the car to the nail salon and back.

Yesterday I was freezing. So I wore my Uggs from the moment I woke up. I was standing in a neighbor's driveway in the late afternoon, and my left foot cramped so badly I immediately sat down. I didn't want to take my boot off to rub my foot so I just kind of sat there awhile and within about 10 minutes it went away. Or so I thought.

We walked a few doors down to our house and, right on the front porch (well, it's not really a porch, just a concrete slab. Totally ugly. Totally drab. But you get the idea), I crumple. It's the foot. Again.

My kids went inside while I sat out there. Sawyer stood at the door, clearly wondering what his Crazy Mommy was doing this time. I managed to scoot backwards on my butt and into the house, where I successfully shut the door with my other foot.

I then opened the closet door and stood to try to hang up my coat. Yeah. Back down I went.

I sat on that floor for another 10 minutes. By this time I'd taken off my boots and was massaging my foot. The cramp was on the top of my foot, near my toes. It makes it all spasm. I can't express to you how painful this is. You're stuck with having to imagine. Or you could have a very large person stand on your foot while pulling your toes as hard as possible. You'd get the idea.

Probably 25 minutes later it's better and I was sitting at the table eating my dinner, feeling okay, when the cramping/spasms hit my OTHER foot. Now I'm in tears.

And there was Sawyer, standing next to me. He rubbed my leg and asked if I was okay, if it really hurt, that he hoped it would feel better.

"I'll be right over there on the couch if you need me, Mommy," he said.

What a sweetie. I mean, seriously. My six year-old boy tried to comfort me (his sister was not interested, and X gets a bye due to his age), and even came back over to rub my leg again, while I grimaced and hung onto my foot.

The kicker of this whole thing is, I have no clue where he gets this empathy from. Because when he falls and scrapes his knee or gets whacked a little too hard by the neighbor kid's light saber, he cries - and I tell him he's got to be tough, that it's not that bad. I admit to occasionally eye-rolling with how dramatic he can be.

But yet, when Mommy is in pain, there he is, trying to make me feel better. He even asked me a couple times today how I was doing.

Someday, he'll be a better Mommy than I ever was.