To begin with, I've been fighting this nasty lingering sinus crud that is causing my throat to feel as though I have something lodged in it all day and night long, and therefore causing me to resort to over-the-counter medications to get a solid night of sleep. Sunday night was no exception.
I took my dose of (you guessed it!) NyQuil. My dose is NOT the reccommended 2 TBSP of the stuff - that would knock me out for a week. Instead, I take 2 tsps of it and that renders me useless and unconscious for at least 8 hours at a time. Beautiful! mostly...
Monday morning, I awoke at 7. No big deal right? Wrong! Our appointments were at 9 and 9:30 (which really meant we were done at 9:30 because we were back-to-back for the same doctor!)...my kids are NOT early risers like me. Nope, they'd rather snooze til noon and then tumble back to bed around 1pm for another 3 hours of sleep, followed by dinner, some time with BB and then back to bed...yeah, I'm that mom...
Anyway...I went sort of crazy and ran around getting myself ready for the day, and woke the kids up at 7:30, BB at 7:32. I ran back and practically threw the kids into the tub for the fastest baths in our house EVER. By 7:45 we were sitting down to our breakfast of Cheerios, yogurt, juice and toast (depending upon which place you were sitting). At 8:30 those kids were still nursing that bowl of entirely mushy cereal (ick!) and warm yogurt (double ick!). Mean mother that I am, I made them eat every last bite and drop of food in their bowls.
SO...we loaded up the car seats with children, and were off to drive the short 5 miles to our clinic, and got stuck at a traffic light for 3 rounds because there is no turn arrow at that intersection and the elderly driver decided they did not have a clear chance to safely turn.
We were late, the kids melted down as soon as they realized we were really going to the doctor. Littlest One wailed when I sat her on the floor in front of the bead thingy to help Captain undress and get into his gown. She wailed when the nurse walked in. She wailed while she sat on the scale. She wailed while she was measured. She wailed in my arms as I tried to fill out a medical history form. She wailed in the 7 minutes we waited for the doctor to come in and examine them both.
Not such a large deal right? The baby wailing at being somewhere she didn't want to be, clad only in her diaper, forced to sit or lie still and be prodded a bit and have that darn temporal thermometer swiped across her forehead for a fraction of a second...well, that wouldn't have been so bad if Captain hadn't freaked out about taking his shoes off to be weighed and measured in the hallway outside the exam room, or when he had to cover one eye with the paddle to do the eye exam, or when he learned he had to take off his shirt and pants and put on the gown (which was like comfy PJ material) and then have the doctor listen to his heart and lungs and all the other things that go along with check-ups...
I can handle 2 crying children with no issue, but add to the mix Princess being upset that she didn't get to do all the things that her brother was doing and it was a debacle.
As if that weren't bad enough, the baby freaked out when the doctor actually examined her.
To add insult to injury both kids got vaccines yesterday...which never goes well (not that I blame them!).
We finally got everyone calmed down, dressed, and back to the truck. I headed to the bank where they were actually out of lollipops. Now, this might not be such a big deal, but those kids really needed something like a dum-dum to appease their wounded sensibilities.
The bank had a clerical error showing our account was THOUSANDS of dollars overdrawn and it took like 45 minutes to straighten everything out with them, while dealing with 2 sniffling children, and a still crying, overtired toddler.
BB called in the midst and declared that I simply must bring him something from the house. I told him in pretty clear terms that he'd simply have to wait until the next day to take it to the office, and why did he expect me to be able to drop everything I was doing to get it to him when it's been sitting on his desk for the last 5 weeks???
We ended up eating fast food from Carl's Jr (aka Hardee's if you're on the other side of the Mississippi River) which ended up making us all sick yesterday afternoon. I finally got to feeling well enough to clean up the main floor and start emptying garbage pails and gathering recycling, as well as dusting, vacuuming, and trying to mop the floor. I had just brought in my actual mop and bucket (yes, I still do that from time to time), and had the water on, warm enough for my job, and went to pull the sprayer hose out of the faucet spout (pull-down sprayer style, not a separate one) to fill my bucket when SNAP! the faucet broke, the hose rapidly snaked back into the faucet and then out of the hole in the sink and into my cabinet. I shut off the water as fast as I could, emptied the cabinet, dried the cabinet, dried the contents (mostly plastic bottles of cleaning supplies thankfully!), and inspected the damage. It was irreparable. I went online to the manufacturer's website to determine if I could get a piece to repair it. I called the home improvement stores in town to find out if they had anything to repair it. I then called BB to tell him he'd better build in some time to get to the store, buy a new faucet and get home to install it before bed time.
He tried making jokes about just asking for a new kitchen faucet if I hated the other one so badly, there was no need to break it.
After I told him the model numbers of the ones I liked best from my online searching, I said "just go buy it, get home and get it in." and hung up.
(I was angry, frustrated, furious, and just flat out DONE with the day).
I almost ordered a pizza for dinner, but decided at the last minute that our fast food sickened bodies did NOT need more junk and grease, and so, we had hot dogs because in my head at the time they were NOT junk and NOT greasy. My sick stomach the rest of the night will tell differently...and, no. I am not pregnant so don't go there.
I had to leave a kitchen full of dirty dishes, get the kids to bed, head to the store for a coupling in order to finish the installation. Why didn't BB go, you ask? Well, because after he ate his dinner, prior to beginning the installation, he changed into his lounge pants. Which he uses as PJ's, NOT clothes. AND, rather than taking 5 minutes to put on a pair of jeans and go to the store himself, he sent me with a garbled description of what I needed.
I spent 45 minutes with the inept salesperson at the big-box store who had NO IDEA what I was looking for, even though his name tag proudly said "department manager - plumbing". I finally sent him to help the other customer who needed him far more than I did, and wandered the fitting aisle, scouring the items for sale. I found what I was looking for, and was verifying it when a ruggedly handsome 30-something guy still in his steel-toed boots and covered in work-day grit and dirt on his clothes asked what I was looking for. I told him what I needed, he looked at what I had, looked at the display of parts and said "yup! That'll do - just make sure to use lots of tape on the joints."
I made my purchase, validated that I do indeed know what I'm doing, headed home and found BB angry, frustrated and generally not happy.
I basically moved him out of the way, mumbled something about "go watch the end of the game and have a beer" and finished the job myself. I taped the threads, attached the hose and connections, and finished up in like 7 minutes. Cleaned the entire kitchen, did all the dishes, mopped the floor, folded 3 loads of laundry, made his lunch for today, and realized he'd been asleep in his chair for at least 40 minutes!
I woke him not-too-gently and sent him to bed, finished dusting the downstairs and did 2 more loads of laundry and headed to bed, still seething at midnight.
I was awakened this morning by a sobbing Captain who was complaining that his arms hurt. He has 2 large knots at the injection sites (not uncommon, but uncomfortable), and a mild fever. I dosed him with some anti-inflammatory/pain-reducer, sent him back to bed, got up, got showered, dressed, and made-up before I realized it was barely 5am. I sighed, brought in the milk delivery and the paper, got all the trash and recycling out, made a pot of coffee, had my breakfast and was done, with a spotless kitchen before 6:30.
I woke everyone else around 7 or so, got them bathed, dressed, fed and sent BB off to work. The kids and I lolly-gagged around until 10:30, at which point, I loaded them up in the truck and headed to Princess' dance class (which started up this week at 11am).
On the way to dance class, Captain was whiny and sniveling, Princess was beligerent and snotty, and Littlest One was happily chattering away.
I pulled up outside the building and parked the truck. I turned around and said in my most threatening voice "If you think we will go through this day being whiny, snotty, having temper tantrums, and crying over nothing you are sadly mistaken. The very next person who has a reaction that is inappropriate will sit in time-out for the rest of the day. Do you understand me?" After the wide-eyed nods and "yes mommy" from the older kids, I unbuckled them, herded them inside and proceeded to have a happy hour. The ride home disintegrated into sobs and temper tantrums because we weren't having "special lunch" but coming home to have (GASP!) PB&J, fruit, carrots, and fish crackers!
It is the only time in my parenting that I have actually had to follow-through with a punishment that I was sorry I had promised.
After allowing them to eat their lunch at the table, and a quiet 20 minutes while cleaned up, I sent them to nap in their rooms.
The silence has been deafening in the last 3 hours, but I know that when nap time is done, the chaos will be sweet and remind me that I fought for this sort of day for 4 long years.
1 comment:
Whew! Just reading that completely wore me out. Ah, the wonderous life of a busy mom... Fun times!
Post a Comment