Comedy of Errors, or A Day in My Life
On Friday I took my 3 year old to Day Out with Thomas. He loves Thomas the Train, so the tickets were his birthday gift last month. Since he is the recently displaced baby in our family, I really wanted him to have a special day of his own. We have been talking it up all month.
The day started with getting his three older brothers ready for school. All three faked different maladies to try to stay home so I would take them with me. We had headaches, legaches, armaches, you name it. Didn’t work. I loaded them in the car for school. We were almost there when my 7 year old says, “Mom, my eye is red and hurts when I open it”. As he was getting out, I said, “Show me your eye”. It was red! (allergies) So, I told him to get out, and I would bring him a Benadryl on my way to see Thomas.
What I should have done next was jump in the shower to get ready. What I did instead was sit down to read my email and FMH while I ate Cheerios. 40 minutes later, it was scramble time.
I didn’t have time to look for 3yo’s Thomas sweatshirt, so the dinosaur one had to do. I ran out of time to comb his hair. But, I did remember to put a bag of fish crackers and a small candy (for bribery) in the diaper bag. Our train ride was right around lunch time, so I knew 3yo would be hungry while we were waiting. As I was putting the baby in her car seat, she pooped. Of course.
The train ride was supposed to start at 11:30, but Thomas was pulling into the station at 10:30. It was an hour away, so I should have left at 9:30. But it was 9:45 when I slid into the driver’s seat. Only 15 minutes late. Not to bad. Too late to drop the Benadryl off to 7yo (is that child abuse?), but not too late to make it to Thomas if I speed.
I put my sunglasses on - and they slip off. Apparently some kid yanked either side of them so they were now too big for my face. I just threw away another pair for this same reason yesterday! This is my last pair, so I frantically bend the frame back into place and put them on. I look in the mirror. They are a little crooked, but they’ll have to do. It’s not like I haven’t spent the last 10 years wearing crooked glasses.
I decide to take the tollway. It’s worth $5 to get there faster. I just get onto the tollway when 3 yo asks for fish crackers. I reach into the diaper bag. No fish crackers. I start pulling stuff out. Still no fish crackers. I realize that 3 yo must have taken the bag of fish crackers out at home. I say, “Sorry! You left the fishies at home!”, and he starts crying, “Please fishies! Please fishies!” After a while I tune him out because there’s nothing I can do. At some point, I look back in the mirror. He has crusty bloody boogers smeared all over his face. I didn’t even know he had a bloody nose.
I had planned to get there in time to see the train pull in and to feed the baby before boarding, but Thomas was already there when we drove up. I forgot to factor in parking, so I park several blocks away, wipe all the bloody boogers off my son’s face, and start running to Thomas. A line for the 11:30 ride is forming, so I park the stroller, take the baby in my arms and get in line.
My baby starts to cry because she’s hungry, so I plop down on the ground in the middle of the line, throw a blanket over me and start nursing. 3yo starts whining for fishies again, so I say, “You want some gum?” (The candy I had planned to bribe him with was also left at home.) He says yes, so I pull the package out. No gum. Some kid ate it all without telling me. Hmmmm. So I say, “Want to call daddy?” I figure that calling daddy will distract him for a little bit. He says yes, so I pull my phone out. It’s dead. I swear I just charged it last week. Or the week before. I am all out of ideas, but fortunately we only have 5 more minutes before it’s time to board.
We get on the train and in our seats. It is a really cool old train from the area with a Thomas engine attached to the front. The seats are nice and cozy with just enough room for 3yo and I. I figure this is a good place to feed the baby on the other side, so I stick her under my blanket and start breastfeeding. Then I look up to see a huge video camera pointed at me. I remember that when I walked into the train station, there was a sign that said, “We are filming for [some show]. You being here is your consent to be filmed”. Great. I slink down in my seat and try to hide.
The train ride was pleasant. 3yo loved having his ticket punched and getting his junior conductor certificate. We get off the train and into the line for pictures. 3yo drops his certificate, and it flies away, but some nice lady chases it down for him. As we are walking to the platform for our picture, I realize that I haven’t brushed my hair since I got out of the shower. And my sunglasses are crooked. Oh well. Smile anyways. I did get one cute “unofficial” picture of 3yo in front of the train with my own camera.
As soon as we finish that, 3yo starts whining about fishies again, which is fair because now it’s over an hour past his lunchtime. I decide that fair food is going to have to do. If we have to eat crap, we might as well make it good crap. So I buy a jumbo corndog and a cherry lemonade.
After we eat, we have an hour before I have to leave to make it home before my schoolkids. We see Sir Topham hat (but of course are too scared to take a picture with him), look at some model trains, bounce in the bouncehouse and go to the Thomas store.
I buy 3yo a little Thomas the Train to remember this day and myself some Thomas stickers. I figure that sometime before he is a grandpa, I’ll scrapbook the one good picture of him really cool so that he’ll know he had a very special day. (That’s been my strategy. If you scrapbook something really cool, your kids think they had a really cool life. The only problem is that I haven’t actually scrapbooked since 2003, and I only scrapbooked a couple of years each for my first two kids. So apparently they had really cool lives, but noone else did.)
I’m starting to run late again, so we hurry to the car. I am about to get on the freeway when 3 yo drops Thomas on the floor and starts whining, “Please Thomas. Please Thomas”. However, my arms don’t reach that far, so I can’t do anything about it. He whines the whole way home, but at some point the whining changes from “Please Thomas” to “Please cheetos”. (Of course I don’t have any cheetos)
I decide to take the freeway instead of the tollway to save some money. That was a mistake. It was backed up the whole way, including an accident near my off-ramp. I pull into my driveway at the exact same time as my kids’ carpool. She didn’t look too happy that I was out driving about at the exact same time and didn’t offer to pick up the kids.
At that point I am kind of tired and out of patience. Thank goodness it’s Friday so I don’t have to deal with an hour and a half of homework. I don’t even have to deal with making dinner because we have a dinner at the church at 6:30. I just change and feed the baby and then snarl at my kids to leave me alone for a couple of hours while I decompress on the internet.
I should have left the house at 6 to make it to the dinner on time, but I was feeling a bit lazy, so I finally left the house at 6:30. DH was meeting us there since he’s the counselor over stuff like that and feels compelled to offer his services. (Isn’t that why other people have callings?)
I load my kids up in the car and start strapping in 3yo in when I notice that he is covered with stickers. Thomas stickers.
Sigh.
Thank you for this post. Its a nice to be reminded that being the mommy of young children has a universal chaos to it and that I might not be a unique disaster.
I especially appreciated the bit about your unbrushed hair. Lately, I feel like I’ve indulged in a luxurious beauty treatment if I have brushed my teeth AND put on deodorant before leaving the house.
Comment by SaraJay — March 7, 2010 @ 1:33 am
Murphy SUCKS. I say we vote him out! It is inevitable… whenever a mom is in a hurry, one of the kids have to have a malfunction of some sort
sooo with you there sister!
Comment by April — March 7, 2010 @ 1:44 am
This is like most of my days…usually on a slightly smaller scale…but eerily similar nonetheless.
Comment by bana — March 7, 2010 @ 1:45 am
When we went to see Thomas last summer for my then not-quite-3yo Thomas fan’s birthday he was too scared to ride Thomas (which was okay because we were late and missed our ride time anyway — they did have openings on later ones, but everyone was in meltdown mode by then, so I was glad we didn’t have to stay to do that). Which is funny, because he was okay riding the train every other time we went there. It also took a ton of coaxing to get a picture of him with Sir Topham Hat. I think it’s overwhelming to them to suddenly see these tiny toy characters so huge.
I totally agree about the scrapbooking so that your kids will know later that they had a fun life. The trick of it is to pay for your little sister to get all the fun scrapbooking stuff she wants if she’ll do your kids’ scrapbooks for you. It’s awesome.
Thanks for the post. I always like to see the snapshots of other people’s days.
Comment by Vada — March 7, 2010 @ 2:31 am
The video camera part made me laugh out loud.
Whew. What a day. Life is such a journey. Thanks for taking us with us on a day in yours.
Comment by m&m — March 7, 2010 @ 3:21 am
Love it! It’s always interesting to consider what your child remembered from the day…generally when I ask my children after what has been a crazy day for me..they have had some great moment and are all excited about it.
Comment by britt — March 7, 2010 @ 7:42 am
#6 - Unless you have one of those “glass half empty” type personalities, who after a day out, eating lunch at a fast food place (super treat) and trip to the zoo with a dolphin show, tells her father when he asks about her day, “well, we DIDN’T get ice cream.” Sigh. Luckily she is now a grateful, helpful, well-mannered 14 year old.
Comment by TXgirl — March 7, 2010 @ 10:02 am
i think you know you are in good company when i catch myself thinking “at least it was blood and not poop that time” lol
Comment by pdig — March 7, 2010 @ 10:43 am
Iremember breastfeeding my daughter on a log flume ride (22 years ago!). I didn’t bother covering because it was a dark ride. Well, you guessed it, somewhere along the line one of those flashes of light was a camera and at the en of the ride, posted for everyone’s enjoyment was my big exposed boobie.
Comment by StillConfused — March 7, 2010 @ 11:33 am
When I got several snow days from work in a row I borrowed 5 little boys from neighbors and decorated Valentine cookies with them because I remembered the hell of cooped up snow days when my 5 boys were in grade school.
Heck with the scrapbooking. Just take more pictures. My kids go through the plain old picture books and find proof that they did cool things. Now with digital pictures you can ship a year’s worth off to Snapfish on a usb and get back a book with the pictures in date order and the date under each picture. All I did was delete the ones where I looked really bad. You can give them all titles, but I didn’t. Voila! My kids and grandkids just want pix of themselves. Let go of the LDS Mom desire for the best presentation and do a good enough presentation.
Comment by Karen — March 7, 2010 @ 11:40 am
This is great, Stephanie. Obviously, our five are older but we are in constant chaos most days. I never know if I’m coming or going and I’m usually a day late and a dollar short. But, it’s all worth it to watch each of them grow and change and blossom. Keep up the good fight, Stephanie. You’re doing a great job.
Comment by Lawyer Lady — March 7, 2010 @ 11:49 am
oh Dear. So sorry for your hard day, but glad for the charming tale of it.
thanks.
Comment by Betty Jo — March 7, 2010 @ 12:21 pm
I’m impressed your son says “please” while whining!
Comment by kew — March 7, 2010 @ 3:04 pm
That made me smile. You are a GREAT MOM!
Comment by Melissa P. — March 7, 2010 @ 3:24 pm
#7 — Like my 5yo who, when asked how her Christmas was, said, “Not very good. Because we didn’t get any snow.” It snowed while we visited Utah before Christmas (enough for romping in the yard and building a giant snowball) and on her *birthday* on the 30th. But Christmas was a disappointment because it wasn’t white. Funny girl.
Comment by ErinAnn — March 7, 2010 @ 4:34 pm
StillConfused, that made me laugh out loud!
Karen, I want to be your neighbor!
Comment by Stephanie — March 7, 2010 @ 5:27 pm
Great story, Stephanie! I remember in our childbirth class, a new mom who came to visit and give us the scoop about what having a newborn is like, said, “A good day is when I manage to take a shower, brush my teeth, AND put my contacts in.” I thought, that’s pathetic, she must not be very organized. Fast forward a couple of months and I completely understood. I don’t know how you manage to take care of four kids. You sound like a supermom. And that’s so sweet that you made a special day for your three-year old.
StillConfused, that is HILARIOUS. I can totally see myself doing something like that.
Comment by Sofia — March 7, 2010 @ 7:27 pm
I have a 3yo boy story! And it even happened today.
We have church at 9 a.m., which isn’t too bad a time I’ve decided. I had boys dressed, me dressed, and baby girl dressed, just needed to do something with her hair. While doing that, boys got in a wrestling match and somehow shoes were lost and they didn’t brush their teeth so they lost their church snacks. I refused to put shoes back on in the house, because it was time to go. So I did them in the car. However, because they weren’t listening there were no treats so the 3yo got out of his car seat TWICE(without unbuckling the seat!) and finally we got to church with him screaming. The whole time we were in the car he screamed for either milk or water which I was going to somehow magically produce. My 3yo also says please when screaming!
I sent the 5yo in to sit with someone while I worked on getting the 3yo calmed down and put his shoes back on him again (because he strips when he gets upset.)
We went into the chapel, sat in the back and had a horrible time between fighting over books and crayons and trying to climb things, and make mountains out of hymn books to climb, etc. I even had someone come sit with me (did I mention I’m single?)
When, all of a sudden the 3yo wants what the 1yo has and wants it NOW NOW NOW! Did I mention this was the middle of testimony meeting? I try to pacify him with a toy motorcycle and he wouldn’t have it so he grabs it from me and flings it into the air where it hits a pew several feet in front of us, goes flying again to hit someone in the head to finally land somewhere while he’s screaming!
I picked him up and tore out of the chapel to put him in time out in a classroom while leaving my 5yo flabbergasted and my 18mo screaming as I walked out. Luckily my ward is awesome and the kids who were left got divided up real fast and I was able to deal with the 3yo who proceeded to strip down to nothing but his shirt (only because he can’t undo the buttons).
He calmed down, but apparently had such a hard time in primary that he got moved to nursery.
Thank goodness for the 3 hour nap that took place when we got home!
They grow out of this right?
Comment by Heidi — March 7, 2010 @ 11:22 pm
My first was an only child for her first 7 years and then my second was so easy since my first was self-reliant and loved to help with the baby–but we have number 3 on the way (mighty close to number 2) and I am reading the post and seeing the …future?
Oye!
Comment by Zaissa — March 7, 2010 @ 11:23 pm
Bless you, Heidi!
Be afraid, Zaissa. Be very, very afraid!
Comment by Stephanie — March 7, 2010 @ 11:25 pm
I had to confiscate the 2 year old’s toys today because the 8 and 11 year old siblings couldn’t stop playing with them. Then they turned to badgering the 2 year old so I had to take her out. There appears to be no growing out of it…just a refining of technique.
Comment by jpwllms — March 7, 2010 @ 11:39 pm
“I’m impressed your son says “please” while whining.”
I agree - you sure are doing something right!!!
Comment by Lawyer Lady — March 7, 2010 @ 11:59 pm
Oh dear, badgering the baby.
Ya, the boys get really upset when they aren’t allowed to play with the baby’s toys. Like that one where you push the button and the balls go up through the tube and back around while it plays music. They get so jealous when she is playing with that. Silly…
So no growing out of it, I just hope maybe that we have less throwing of toys in church. I’m so afraid of someday moving out and ending up in a ward that is less … understanding.
Comment by Heidi — March 8, 2010 @ 1:00 am
I know it is very shortsighted of me, but reading this kind of thing really balances out my occasional baby hunger (it’s not even really hunger. more like munchiness). I don’t deal well with the kind of stress you’re talking about and the idea of having one child is terrifying, let alone many. I feel sometimes as one half of a childless married couple that we’re standing on the edge of a precipice looking down and not really knowing how far it is to fall. I know that’s a bad analogy, because nearly everyone I know seems overall very glad for the children they have, but wow… sometimes we talk about having a baby, and it’s exhausting and scary to even THINK about it.
So Stephanie, your story makes me kind of laugh… and kind of cry… but I agree with the above comments: good on ya for making a special day for your Thomas fan.
Comment by xenologue — March 8, 2010 @ 2:10 am
Heidi #18
Sorry to say that a friend of mine ended up in the ER yesterday after Sacrament meeting because 2 of her boys (both over 12) were wrestling over a set of scriptures, well the case anyway (it had gum in it) and one broke his finger.
Comment by TA — March 8, 2010 @ 10:48 am
I get such a thrill from reading this kind of story because it lets me know I’m not the only mom who has days like this (and also not the only one who has a deadline for leaving the house, knows what she should be doing, and then spends the time checking email and reading FMH instead!)
Comment by Allison — March 8, 2010 @ 11:50 am
heidi…what a day! I had to laugh at the 3yos undressing because he was angry! What could be going through his mind on that one…
Comment by britt — March 8, 2010 @ 12:08 pm
Yeah, Stephanie,
I wish you were in my ward.
Comment by Karen — March 8, 2010 @ 8:38 pm
We actually went to the ER once during church because my 5yo had his finger slammed in the primary door and lost his fingernail. Once again, the kids got split up, I was able to take care of him and a friend of mine took the other two kids home for me.
Man, fighting over scriptures, that is going to be a great story to tell for years!
I have no idea why he undresses when he is angry but it happens on a pretty regular basis, usually in the car or at home. This was the first time at church. I don’t know!
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one with kids who are very visible with their inability to handle church. We went to a baby blessing a month ago in a different ward and my kids were actually doing pretty good … for them … but a couple by us was VERY VERY annoyed. I felt bad. However, an elderly lady in front of me turned around at the end of sacrament meeting and told me she thought I was doing a great job with them, which made me feel great.
Comment by Heidi — March 8, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
A woman in my ward once came up to me and another sister and asked what we did to keep our kids so well behaved. Without batting an eye and in unison we both said “We beat them”. The look on her face was priceless. We busted up laughing so she decided against running away from us.
Comment by jpwllms — March 9, 2010 @ 10:46 am
Stephanie thanks for that!
I always feel like a disorganized and unprepared Mom and its good to know its just a normal part of being a Mom and a person. I always forget something at home if not the whole kit & kaboodle. Things get really fun when you forget diapers, which I’ve done so many times that GG made an emergency diaper bag for me to keep in the trunk. Of course it doesn’t help when I use the emergency diapers and then don’t replace them…..
Comment by AmazonaWomona — March 9, 2010 @ 2:00 pm
My 16 yr old daughter told me she wasn’t going to 1st period today and that I would have to take her to school in time for 2nd period. I said, “Okay what time?” She said, “I have to be there by 9:30 and since you have to go back into the house 15 times before you can ever leave, and you have to go to the bathroom, or check the computer, or get your diet coke, or find your keys, you better start getting ready about 8:30.” She was serious.
I said, “Just you wait.”
Loved the story - reminds me of my life. My kids are all older. It is still the same, but different.
Comment by Stephanie — March 9, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
Comment by Lorian — March 9, 2010 @ 11:07 pm