Friday, December 14, 2007

One crazy day!

I've decided to start this blog mostly to chronicle my adventures with my children. My daughters, Rita, 2.5 years old, and Elizabeth, 9 months, are most definitely a tremendous blessing to my husband and myself and we are incredibly thankful for them. But sometimes they take us places we don't really want to go . . .

This is how my day went yesterday:

11 AM - left the house to go into the city (45 minute drive) to get proofs from portrait session yesterday. I was assured by the photographer that they would be ready by 11:00 today so that we could pick out our Christmas card picture and design.

11:45 - We get there and they aren't ready. "Amber" at the front desk tells me they probably won't be ready today. I'm mad that I have made the drive for that sole purpose and wasted gas, but I don't say anything to her. Says she will call me when they are ready. I ask if we can use the restroom (since we had a 45 min drive home ahead of us). No, there's a portrait session going on in the back where the restroom is, so we can't. Fine, I didn't have to go that badly anyway. Apparently Rita did. We walk out and I'm treated to a 10 minute screaming-bloody-murder-tantrum from Rita about how she wants to go potty in the store. I hope Amber heard it too.

12:00 - We pull up at Chick Fil A after I manage to, by some miracle, find ~$7 in change in my purse. I figure we can eat lunch and Rita can play in the indoor playground and chill out a little. I ask her if she wants to go in and go potty and she says no. I know that means she has already peed her pants. I get her in the front seat and change her clothes.

12:10 - We go in, and go to the bathroom. I answer my cell phone (David calling) with my underwear and pants around my ankles while Ellie plays on the filthy floor and Rita disassembles the sanitary napkin disposal bin. I inform him we aren't having any more children.

12:15 - We order, sit down (the nice man who took our order carried our food to the table). Rita eats three of her four chicken strips. I eat half of my wrap and am about to tackle the other half when Rita shoves the tray across the table announcing she's done, and knocks my wrap on the floor.

12:30 - I sit and watch the kids play in the play area and sip my water while my stomach continues to growl. I change a poopy diaper on the floor.

1 PM - We leave, and I get to hear two more toddler tantrums on the way home, all the while shaking from stress. I eat a bag of chocolate chips found in the diaper bag.

WAIT. It gets much better.

1:45 PM - We arrive home. I take Rita inside. I hang up my keys and put down the diaper bag and my purse. I go out to the car to get Ellie. I come back and Rita has locked me out of the house. I cannot convince her to open the door. I call David at work who comes and lets me in the house 20 minutes later. Rita, meanwhile, poops her pants and takes my Tucks pads that were setting on the bathroom counter and scatters them all over the bathroom floor, doing a little wall-cleaning with them too. Nothing like a little witch hazel to freshen things up.

Oh, and while David was on his way to rescue me, Amber called and said the proofs were ready.
It's just been one of those days . . .

Then today (Friday), adventures at the grocery store:

Back into the city we went this morning to look at the proofs and order the Christmas cards. I got two calls from the hospital this morning, begging me to work. Too bad I couldn't! They were even offering bonuses, so I know they must have been short-staffed pretty badly.

We got to the portrait studio and this time Amber had my pictures ready. She was very nice, and everything went pretty well, except for Rita un-doing her pigtails and yelling "Get my hairtie! Get my hairtie!" while she waited for me to finish looking at the pictures. We ordered the cards and left. Yesterday I had vowed that I would leave there and come directly home, but I had managed to come up with a grocery list last night, and I wanted to avoid having to stop at the store tomorrow night on my way home from work, so I couldn't resist going by HEB.

So we get into the store and head immediately to the bathroom near the produce section. That's the only restroom there that I am aware of. I had the girls in the cart since the front part is a double seater and that is the easiest way for me to get us all into the bathroom and avoid having Ellie on the floor. Just before we got there, a woman at the last table in the dining area got up with an infant on her hip and carrying a clean diaper and a pack of baby wipes cut into the women's restroom about a half a second ahead of me. So I stood outside and waited with the cart while Rita climbed back and forth between the front seat and the main area of the cart. After several minutes, the other mother emerges from the restroom. We enter and the overwhelming smell of - well- you know - takes over. But that's ok; I'm a nurse and I can deal with it. I have Rita use the potty and get back into the cart while Ellie eats my grocery list. I inform Rita that she must sit in the front part of the cart while I shop. Upon attemting to strap her in, I find no way to enforce that, unfortunately, as the safety strap is broken. (It usually is, no matter which cart I pick or what store I happen to be at.) So we begin shopping. Produce area and cheese section are a-ok. Fast forward to the baking aisle. We get sugar and flour and some other things. I finally find the powdered sugar I need at the end of the aisle. I pick up the top bag and white powder begins to fly everywhere. All over me, my cart, my kids, and most especially the floor. The bag was ripped open in the middle before I ever even picked it up. Nice. I pulled out of the aisle and off to the side to clean up and brush it off of my hands and clothes. As I'm doing this, a middle-aged woman rolls by, gushing over the girls and says to me, "That's a beautiful baby boy you've got there."

"She's a girl," I called after her, becoming upset. I guess some people dress their baby boys in purple pants, a pink shirt, pink socks, and a mint green sweater with pink and purple snowflakes on them, but I'm not one of them!

Proceed to the feminine care aisle, where I peruse the tampons. Apparently yeast infections are something to be feared this time of year, as I had to wait for a couple of rounds of women before me to vacate that area before I could get some Monistat for myself. I shouldn't be surprised after spending the last two weeks with an abcessed tooth and being pumped full of three different kinds of antibiotics.

We got to the checkout line and I had to battle Rita trying to put gum and various types of candies into the cart for me to buy her. I know inquiring minds want to know, so you'll be happy to hear that I did inform the cashier of the powdered sugar fiasco so it could be cleaned up. I would hate for someone else to have to clean all of it off of their black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans!

As we were leaving I discovered that there is another restroom in the front of the store. Good to know.