Who is paying attention...?

Apparently not me-- and that makes me mad.

My finger hurts and I can't find a piece of mail I am looking for.

[sigh]

Both are due to negligence.

On the finger, I was closing the baby gate last night, reaching for it without looking, and I scraped my framed Blues Brothers poster with my ring finger, causing a splinter of painted frame to lodge 3/4 of the way under my fingernail.

Labor breathing is great, isn't it? I use it for pain management all the time; works more effectively than screaming.

Redbeard got the splinter spear out with tweezers (bless you, honey!) but there's a little paint fragment stuck at the extreme point. I washed it exhaustively and it's not throbbing (much)anymore, but it's swollen today, just a bit, and it doesn't feel good when I type with it. It woke me up a few times last night too.

I can see splinters under the fingernail as a method of torture; it's evident in the pain that something Very Wrong is occurring. Baby labor was painful, but it's wasn't wrong; it was a means to an end. Because of the *wrongness* and the spiraling escalation, breaking my pinky toe was more painful. Finger. Ow.

And the other thing that I am irritated with myself about is this important piece of mail that I got, looked at while in my car at the post office, set aside with the other mail, brought in the house and now CANNOT FIND.

WTF???

I have been through the house like a tornado, searching, searching, picking up, searching again. Through the car, through every damn thing I can think of. Under, inside, on top of. Can't find it.

I am 33 years old and I cannot be trusted to manage a piece of paper. In fact, I don't remember when I actually even saw it last! I was running on automatic, completely not even paying attention.

And that's my problem, after becoming a mom; I don't have the fine acuity, the focus that I used to give to pretty much everything I would do, even opening the mail, etc. I was always present & in the moment.

Fast forward 14 months: Now, I am constantly on yellow alert, relaxed but ready to spring into action while caring for the bumps, falls, ickies, protection, need-meeting and other issues of Monkey. Otherwise, I am apparently on automatic pilot.

Is this autopilot a balance of the otherwise low-but-constant vigilance? A function of not enough time away? Am I not renewed enough? Or is it simply a change in priorities? I have heard my friends who are veteran moms say while talking to their kids, "Is anyone bleeding? No? Then go play."

Have the little everyday things come under the flow-chart of "Bleeding" or "Not Bleeding?" I don't want to be that stratified! I've always lived in the gray, loved the gray, wrapped myself up in it like a blanket and turned it inside out to expose all the valued hues, a rainbow of gray. I do not want to live in the "Bleeding" or "Not Bleeding" world!

To be who I am, to live with myself, I need to be accountable for important things which I obviously fell down on in these particular instances (examples, of course-- there are many others!). Of course, yes, they are little things, could happen to anyone, blah blah. But I need them to not happen-- which means I need to be paying attention. Why is my attention account empty!?!