Wednesday, February 25, 2009

A day that started out on a downward spiral.

There is a reason doctor's tell you to get a good night's sleep. Without it you are ill prepared to deal with the unniceties of life, and sometimes even the niceties. Last night Madison slept okay, not great, but okay. I, on the other hand, woke up every time she made a noise. By 6 am I gave up, rolled myself out of bed and into the shower. Good news: I got a shower. Bad news: Didn't exactly follow doctor's orders. I doubt I even made it to REM sleep. So before my day even began, I was already on my way downhill.

I had one thing on my agenda for the day, just one...go to the OB for my six week post partum check up. Now I scheduled the appointment weeks ago and thought I was planning well by choosing a day Owen would be in school, only Owen doesn't have school this week. But that's okay, I can handle three kids in a doctor's office. I mean, it's not like it will be a long visit and as long as I pack snacks and activities, we'll be cool right? Insert awkward laugh.

Things were good until about 9:30. This is when I start packing the bags, strapping in the baby, getting on coats, and warming up the car. But wait, where are those darn car keys? It's not abnormal for me to not know what I did with the car keys, but they're normally in one of two places. Problem was that I didn't drive the car last. No problem, I'll just call Neil and ask him what he did with them. Houston now we have a problem. Neil couldn't remember. He'd seen Blake playing with them, but after that came a blank. Hhhmm, can you sense what was happening to my blood pressure at that moment? I was furious. I looked everywhere I thought Blake might have put them, under chairs, inside toy baskets, in the bathtub...no keys. I even asked the boys to help me look which produced jack. Finally I get Neil's spare truck key and hold it up to Blake and tell him to find my keys. I felt like a cop telling his K9 to sniff out some drugs. Just then Owen says, "Mommy, Mommy, you're keys are downstairs." Paying little attention to Owen (who says things like that all the time), I turned my eyes back to Blake who had found something more interesting to look for in the toilet.

Keep in mind that this whole time Madison has been strapped into car seat and now is becoming impatient, and I am running out of time. I hear Owen yelling something from downstairs, so I go check it out, and there he is standing at the bottom of the stairs with my keys in his hand. "Owen, where did you find those?"

"Oh, in Mat's room." He said it like it was a matter of fact, no big deal. I grabbed the keys, threw the kids in the car, and headed off to the doctor's office. I wish my story ended there with a happy ending, but it was about to get worse.

I arrived in the parking lot of the Kaiser center about 7 minutes late. Once you're 15 minutes late, you lose your appointment, but it's cool, I can get up there in 8 minutes. And I would have too if the stroller was set up for the infant seat holder and not the snack tray. I'll let you figure out for yourself who left it on there. So I'm standing in the parking lot trying desperately to get the snack tray off. It's one of those things where you have to push the botton in and slide it over to release. Only it's plastic and it's cold, making it extremely difficult to manuever. My thumb is bleeding (it was already cracked from dry skin) and time is ticking. Finally I toss the attachment into the stroller, pick up the car seat in one arm and push the stroller with the other one. I can feel the judgement all around me. What? It's not like I'm the Octomom.

When I checked in I was 20 minutes late. The receptionist said that they would still see me which made me happy. She failed to tell me that they were basically going to try and squeeze me in between appointments. Yeah chica, I have three kids under 4. How long do you think they are going to hold up? Well I'll tell you how long...30 minutes. With Madison screaming, Blake fussing, and Owen disobeying, I was done. All I could do was reschedule (for a time when I knew Owen would be in school) and leave. I didn't even make it to the car before the tears began to flow. I felt like such a failure. One thing on my to-do list and I couldn't even accomplish that. It made me want to throw my weight watchers points out the window and drown my sorrows in Five Guys. Good thing I was crying too hard to stop, plus I knew Madison needed to eat. So home we went.

The rest of the day has been eeh, not great, but not horrible either. I was going to say that I hope I get in some good quiet time while the kids nap, but since Blake just woke up, that doesn't look like it is going to happen. These are the days I wish I had a nanny. How are you supposed to sleep when the kids sleep if none of them sleep at the same time? Seems like futile advice when you have more than one kid.

What the moral of the story, you ask? There isn't one. Sometimes you just have one of those days where everything goes wrong. Today was one of those days.

3 comments:

amy@flexibledreams said...

Oh Hill, I have nothing to say except YOU ARE NOT ALONE! I know know I only have two kids but I've had more days like that then I can remember. It gets better!!

I love you!

Mommy Martin said...

I have days like that now- and I only have one kid. I think you are doing an amazing job- I really do. I've always thought- how does she have it all together? So, one bad day isn't too bad, I hope.

Becca said...

Hey Punkin'!
Sorry you had such a hard day, I remember those and I only had 2 under 2. I remember Ella Graces first ped. appt. that I thought was a great idea to kill 3 birds with one stone and schedule Emmas and Logans at the same time. It was raining, everything that could go wrong did and I had no help, the last straw was tryng to get the stroller with Emma, carseat with Ella and Logan out the door without someone getting smushed and to the car without getting drenched. Nobody helped, nobody even opened the door, all of us were drenched and I sat there in the car wet, cold and crying.
Just wanted to share a story with you so you wouldnt feel alone and so you know that things will get better, they will grow more independent and you can do this. You are a beautiful, strong woman and mother, let these yucky days go and hold on to the good vibes and the love.