Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The best part of being a stay at home mom is all the time to myself

I never would have guessed that being a mom would mean yearning for the carefree days of my youth when I could dig around in my own eyeball for a piece of contact lens without interruption. Yet here we are.

I wear daily disposable lenses. Most of the time they are great and I love them. But every once in a while they splinter into little plastic shards upon contact with my eyeball, at which point they become Piece of Shit Stupid Effing Contacts. You may have a  similar product around your own home.

Funny story. About a week after Marlo was born, in some sort of sleep deprived haze I hear is common for new parents, I lost a piece of a contact in my eye. Or at least I was pretty sure I did. I couldn't tell for sure because I didn't remember what the thing I took out of my eye looked like. But my eye felt weird. It felt like there was some sort of foreign object involved. But I wasn't sure.

I went to the eye doctor. It wasn't my usual doctor but one of his associates I had never met before. He acted a little bit like I was batshit crazy, a little bit like he was going to catch something from me seeing as I was a woman only a few days postpartum. Then again, I remember shoulder checking a door frame for no reason other than I didn't quite have the strength to walk right, so maybe he was on to something.

ANYWAY. The best part was he told me, "now, this is going to be a little bit uncomfortable, but I have to roll your eyelid inside out." What I said out loud was "okay," but what I thought in my head was "Dude. Don't worry about it. A kid with a fourteen inch head just came out my vagina. I'll be fine with your stupid little eyelid games. You pussy." So he did the eyelid thing, poked all around, never found the contact. He assured me it probably wasn't in there, but if it was, it would work its way out and not, say, migrate up into my brain and give me a stroke.

SIX WEEKS LATER. Sitting in my bed, rubbing my eye...what's that big nasty thing I just felt fall onto my cheek? WHY, it's a piece of contact. I'm telling you, I never felt more vindicated in all my life. I made phone calls. Do you know I actually went in to the eye doctor to tell him that I just got that piece of contact out of my eye? I mean, I was there to buy glasses but I made sure to tell him. Thus proving that I am not crazy? I guess.

I thought of this story as the stupid piece of shit effing contact lens broke apart upon insertion to my eye yesterday, as Marlo sat screaming on my bed, the only thing calming her my presence in her line of sight. It's stressful enough to dig around your own eyeball for a piece of transparent plastic, nevermind ratcheting it up with screaming infant. It makes you do crazy things like start putting something in your eye that you are pretty sure is eyedrops without actually checking first.

Thankfully, it was the eyedrops. The offending plastic was located. Marlo was subdued. I lived to fight another day.

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