So. Have you ever had one of those days where nothing truly bad happens, but you definitely, definitely should have stayed in bed with the covers pulled over your head? The kind of day that will be funny in 10 years, but today just makes you want to cry? That's my last Tuesday. And in another example of "I had to live it, so you can at least read it," here you go.
Approximately 2:15am: You know it's bad when your first "incident" happens less than three hours into the day. Ian's still getting up for a super-early morning feeding -- he sleeps six or so hours straight, but he goes to bed really early (like 7:00). So, every morning at about 2:00, I sleepwalk over to Ian's room, feed him for about 20 minutes. Then I then walk (honestly, I run. I dare you to calmly walk around your dark-ass house in the middle of the night with no protection from ghosts or creepers before you judge me.) back to our room, get into bed, and mess around on my phone for a few more minutes while I make sure Ian is asleep and settled. Last Tuesday night was no different from normal; Ian wakes up hungry, I feed Ian, I come back to bed, I continue to mess around on my phone to ensure baby restfulness before I pass out again. But this time, as I'm lying there checking my phone, a three-quarters-asleep John out of nowhere, all of a sudden sits up in bed, pump-fakes at me as hard as he can, and yells (YELLS, at the top of his lungs, no joke) "RAAAAAAWR" while clawing at me with his hands. Seriously. It was so terrifying that I literally screamed at the top of my lungs. Why would he do such a thing? Why, you ask?? Good question. As soon as I could compose myself enough to talk, I repeatedly asked him "WHY?? I just want to know why you did that??" -- but he was still so asleep that he couldn't even answer. He just kept mumbling and laughing (which freaked me out almost as much as the initial attack!). Whatever, no excuses. Horribly traumatizing.
After that lovely start, things actually went well for much of the rest of the day. Joe went to school, Ian and I went shopping with my mom and helped her do some unpacking. I headed home around 3:00pm to make sure I was home in time to take Joe to speech therapy - he had a rescheduled appointment at 5:30pm that evening, which isn't our normal time. That matters for later.
3:30pm: I get home and need to pump a bottle for Ian so he can stay with the nanny while we go to speech therapy. After thirty minutes of pumping, I have about half a feeding's worth of noms. Getting enough for Ian to eat has never been a problem for me -- in fact, I've always had the opposite problem... -- but, as you can tell from last week's post, I was sick as a dog last week. And I learned the hard way (last Tuesday at about 3:30pm) that sickness will screw with your milk supply. So, change of plans. Ian will have to ride with me up to speech therapy, so that I can feed him there if the half-feeding doesn't tide him over. 3 month old + rush hour traffic. See where this is going?
4:10pm: So Joe, Ian, and I pack ourselves and all of our baby crap into the car to head to speech therapy. The office is about 15 miles away from our house, not even, but it's down a road that is under massive construction, so we usually leave ourselves about 45 minutes to get there in time. Since this appointment was smack-dab in the middle of rush hour, we weren't messing around. My goal was to leave by 4:15, and we did. Success.
4:20pm: As I'm entering the ramp to Terrible Highway, I hear on the radio that there are accidents going both ways on Terrible Highway, each at the exact exit we need to take for speech therapy. So traffic is a disaster. No problem, there are some back roads we can take.
4:35pm: I'm patting myself on the back as we exit from Terrible Highway. We turn onto Forest Lane, which runs parallel. A few stoplights in and I'm very pleased with my resourcefulness in avoiding the traffic apocalypse on Terrible Highway. We still have about an hour to go 6 miles. Easy.
4:50pm: Sitting through the fifth light cycle at the fifth light on Forest. Oh no.
4:58pm: As I'm finally speeding through that same stoplight (on a red), I hear on the radio that there is a huge accident at Forest Lane on the street directly after the turn we need to make. Awesome. But, we still have thirty minutes to go 6 miles. We could all WALK there faster than that, so still, easy.
5:10pm: I've turned off of Forest onto some other lame parallel road. Which is even more completely stopped than Forest OR Terrible Highway. I call the speech therapy office three or four times to let them know the situation, but no answer. On the last call I leave a voicemail, kind of pissed that no one is there to answer, right? But I'm the late one I guess, so I have to be tolerant. Anyway, Ian's regular time to eat is about 5:00 (another reason I wanted to get there early) and today is no different, so he's in the back screaming his lungs out for food. Joe is being a complete saint. But still, as anyone who's been trapped in the car with a screaming infant knows, this is horribly stressful. Mom tears ensue.
5:27pm: We haven't even moved through one stoplight since we turned onto this other road. The speech therapist office calls me back finally and apologizes that their phones aren't working, but will I be able to make it in time? I tell them that there's no way I can make it by 5:30, but we are one block away from our turn, which is 5 blocks away from the office, so there's no way it can THAT much longer to get there. They tell me that Kristen will work with him for as much time as she can, so I decide to keep trying to get there. Ian's screams have chilled out because I was able to get in the backseat and replace the binky at one of the stoplights.
5:45pm: We are just turning onto the road that the therapy office is on, and the traffic is even more stopped on this road than the other road. Great. I finally realize that there's no way we can make the appointment (no idea why this took me so long. I was out of my right mind.), so I call and cancel. Ian's screaming has resumed at full throttle. I decide it would be terrible parenting to make him wait any longer, so, decision made. I pull over onto some random side street and give him his bottle.
5:52pm: Ian finished his half-feeding and, of course, is still hungry. So, out comes the boob. On a random side street in Dallas. Maybe not so weird for some nursing moms, but this "in public" thing is not my M.O. At this point my tears are flowing freely. John is on the phone making sympathetic noises. Joe is still being a saint in his carseat.
6:05pm: Everyone gets back strapped into their respective seats, and we head back into the traffic to get home. Repeat steps above re: horrible traffic.
6:50pm: I get home. Finally. In the end, we were all in the car for over two and a half hours. And we didn't even go anywhere. The whole trip was less than 30 miles.
If you stuck through this story up to this point, you can hang on for some bragging. I can honestly say that I shed more tears throughout this ordeal than my kids did. Joe was happy and funny the whole trip. Seriously, the whole trip, not an upset peep from him. He just talked to me and looked out the window and hung out. Ian cried, of course, but he is three months old and it was for food -- totally justified. And the minute I got the bottle near his mouth, he had a smile so big he couldn't even eat it. How great is that, he went from bawling for food to smiling and laughing the minute he was up with me getting his bottle? Love that kid.
My kids definitely have their moments, but in this horribly trying situation where I lost my cool on so many occasions I'm embarrassed to admit it, neither of my kids lost their cool once. Love that they are already better than me. Doesn't that mean my job is basically done??
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