The Pickerupper

5 weeks ago I hurt my back. Real bad. No one thing did it but the doctor said I'd pulled a lower muscle, that I shouldn't bend over and prescribed a strong painkiller for 3 weeks and 7 nights of tranquilizers, boy did those knock me out and made me groggy all day.

Anyway the doctor was right, 3 weeks later I was back to normal. And the biggest thing I've learned is that I am The General Pickerupper. Over that time I've watched my house gain a sea of debris on the floor which ebbs and flows as my son and husband pick them up or, in the case of the latter, move them to another patch of carpet. There are toys (of course, I live with a three year old), but without me doing a daily whiz round the toys stay where they were dropped.

There's more than toys though, there's a piece of white thread that's been shouting out from the hall carpet. There's the bits around the waste paper bins, the dry cat food not in the cat bowl, tiny pieces of clear plastic that you can only spot in a certain light, the list goes on.

Then there's the things I couldn't do for my son. Little man has had to walk all the way to nursery instead of being carried, getting him in and out the bath or on the toilet was a challenge and picking him up for a hug was a no go. He has been really good about it, asking me about my back and helping me out as parts of our daily routine were tweaked.

So now my back is fine, as if it never happened, the house is clean and everything is in it's place but it's  good to remember these things because although it doesn't seem too big now, at the time it was massive.