
When it hurts to bend down you realize that’s what life is, picking things off the ground, or at least parenting, which is equal parts love, frustration, fatigue, chicken nuggets, and picking chicken nuggets off the the floor. Don’t forget to stretch, lift with your knees, complain only sometimes, and remember that the pain is temporary in the sense that you will stop noticing it, because the kids will become taller and will begin to lift their own things off the ground, and you will wish them smaller because you didn’t love it enough, you didn’t ice your back then enough, and now it’s five years later and you miss the tiny pieces of macaroni and cheese stuck to the bottom of the chair.