Nights You Wish You Were At Work

I had a decently stressful week at work. Lots of plates to keep spinning, new processes to figure out, policies to write, etc. etc. etc. Each night when I went home I was excited to hang out with the boys before putting them in bed and getting back to work. Woe is me, right?

On Friday I ended up looking back at my week fondly and wishing I could just go back to the office instead of dealing with my children. That's when it's bad.

Here's how it went down...

I arrived at daycare around 5:30. Jack was wandering around his room whimpering. His teacher said that he was fine until he got pinched in the gym, and she thought he was being sensitive about it. He wouldn't speak - just collapsed in a puddle in my arms. That made Ryker sob, as did the fact that he kept tripping on the blanket he was walking around with. And I wouldn't let him throw that into the snow. Bad mom.

I loaded them into the car and finally got Jack to tell me that his ear hurt. He screamed the entire way home, as did Ryker, and then MY ear was hurting. But I didn't scream. Not yet. I tried to drown them out with MPR.

By the time I pulled into the garage I had already diagnosed Jack with an ear infection and formulated a plan. I would wait for Chuck to get home from the store and he'd watch Ryk while I took Jack to the Minute Clinic at Target. The flaw with my plan? Chuck was still IN the store WITHOUT his phone. And somehow calling, texting, muttering, swearing and calling back was not changing the situation.

I got the kids into the house - both still puddles. Only Jack was able to identify his pain, so he got my attention. Ryker got thrown into his highchair with a pile of Puffs in front of him. He didn't stop screaming. I held Jack on the couch while he sobbed and shuddered and wailed and made horrific little choking sounds. Still swearing, I bundled the kids up again (remember that it's about 5 degrees in MN this time of year) and loaded them into the car. Ryker punched me repeatedly in the arm as I latched him in.

We arrived at Target and I got the boys into the clinic. Ryker laid on the ground in the waiting area, screaming and rolling around and hitting anyone that came near him. Jack sat on a chair and sobbed, yelling "MOMMMMMMAAAAAAA-AA-AAA-AAA!" repeatedly. I tried to make jokes to the passers-by - all of them - because they were ALL staring and wondering why I wasn't at the ER because obviously both children had just had limbs forcibly removed, right? The little girl sitting in the waiting room looked panicked as she watched my boys destroy the nice little lobby - throwing Kleenex around - dragging books all over and drooling/crying on them - pulling trash out of the trashcan.

Finally Chuck arrived. Amazing how much better that made ME feel. Screw the kids. I took Ryker home and Chuck stayed with Jack, who did, in fact, have an ear infection.

But alas, we're not out of the woods. Apparently "E-Prescriptions" can take up to 45 minutes to get to Walgreens. I could have run backwards to Walgreens and mixed the prescription myself faster than that.

So Jack went to sleep and Chuck went to get the meds. He came back and we went into his room to give them to him. "Wake up, Bud....Bud?...Come on...Get UP!" Took us a good 15-20 minutes to get him to sit up, and then he was sobbing and fighting us off so I had to hold him up while Chuck shoved meds into his mouth.

He awoke at 5am wanting to play and eat and go swimming. And he had NO recollection of the nurse-session the night before.