Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.
It's the Christmas season. Woo! This means, in most cases, a frantic hyping up of normal schedules and trying to get more done in a day than is feasible - especially on a base with limited supplies and resources so close to a payday (which for most of us is translating into very little money).
The rounds of Christmas parties have started, we have two this week and a possible two next week. Hopefully, that will be all. Hopefully.
Yesterday was my weekly drop the kids off at daycare so I can get things done day, only R and I planned a lunch for his staff so I went and hung out with them for lunch instead of doing laundry, cleaning house, and working on my final project for the class I'm in. Chores...lunch. It was such a difficult choice to make. Although I did finally go get my tetanus shot so that I could check off at least one chore. And I must say that Dr. McSpeedyShot gets my seal of approval. Wonder if I can take the kids there for their shots instead of the pediatric clinic where they apparently send all the people that need practice. I guess they figure since most of the kids can't talk all that well it's a good place to start. Harrumph.
But I'm getting off track. (How completely unlike me.) This morning the kids slept until after 8 am, which is so nice and unusual. Unfortunately, so did I. I meant to do errands this morning or at least some laundry but it just didn't happen, and before I knew it, it was time to take T to school. On Thursdays after we drop T off, S and I usually go hang out with Mandy who lives near the school. Her youngest and S are close in age, and it turns out that our husbands are in the same squadron but in different areas.
Because next week is the MOMS Club Holiday party, the executive board (which I insanely volunteered to join (not my best decision)) is taking turns sitting in different areas around base to take donations for the kids' stockings that we still haven't made arrangements to put together (that's a story for another blog). I volunteered to sit at the food court from 3 to 4 since Jenny was at the food court this morning.
Here's how the day played out:
Get up, shower, decided to let hair air dry, hoping for waves. Nope. I get the frizzies so I roll it on Velcro rollers to smooth it out and hopefully add some volume. It worked fairly well until I walked outside into the perma mist. Why do I bother?
Give up on trying to get the kids to get dressed before I give them breakfast rationalizing that I may have a shot at keeping their clothes clean for at least five minutes by doing this.
Feed the kids. Try not to get upset when S dumps the milk out of her cereal bowl onto the table and finger paints with it. She does this, by the way, and manages to keep most of her cereal IN the bowl. Amazing, that one!
Clean up the kitchen (except for the floor) while the kids are eating. I liked it better when I had them convinced that mini bagels were doughnuts with less sugar coating.
Ask, coax, threaten and then manhandle the kids into clean pullups/diapers and clothing. Fight with S for a good 30 minutes to get her out of the minnie mouse pj's, only to turn around and find out she's taken all her clothes off. Sigh loudly and fight urge to yell or mutter. Get her dressed again only for her to poop. Lather rinse repeat. Aaaaaannnd, she poops again. Crikey!
Get the kids dressed from head to toe just in time to feed them an early lunch. (Shout out to T here because he actually picked out matching clothes and dressed himself today while my battle with S raged on). Guess he got tired of hearing it too.
Feed them lunch, managing to talk them into fruit rather than chips. Yay! Get them in coats, shoes, gloves and hats and into car seats - ON TIME. It's a Christmas miracle.
Drop off T at school, go and hang out with Mandy and her daughter. S is tired, tired, tired. I figure if she falls asleep in the car I can put her in the stroller and let her sleep through our hour of drop off time at the food court. Only, she doesn't fall asleep and I don't have the stroller. Way to be prepared, B!
Pick T up from school, get to the BX/Food Court parking lot at 2:43. I have enough time to grab a coloring book for S and a cheap toy for T to keep them entertained. I walk into the food court with supplies, only to find one of the MOMS Club members waiting for me. There's no way it can be more than a couple minutes after 3, but she is surly. I apologize profusely for making her wait, she sweeps grandly from the food court after not responding to me but getting offended that S picked up her son's juice from the table and tried to drink it. (okay, I have to give her that one - it embarrassed me).
Sit with the kids for an hour while no one shows. Placate them with a diet coke and an order of fries which they actually share. Pack up at 4 and then spend 10 minutes scrubbing crayon marks off the table and chair. S, S, S, S. What am I going to do with you?!!?!?
Accept that I really need to go to the commissary, even thought the kids are tired and antsy. Strap S into the buggy only to have her start to scream. With only a handful of things to get, I give in and pick her up. She falls asleep immediately. Hmm.. her pants are a little wet around the edges of her diaper. But then, I haven't changed her diaper in four hours. Sigh. On the plus side, it reminded me that we need wipes. Halfway through the commissary, I realize that the wet I feel isn't from pee or from her falling down when she got out of the car. Oh, lord. It's poo. Siiiiiiiiigh. The diaper bag is in the car so I decide to power through grabbing what I absolutely have to have and I'll just change her in the car.
By the time I get to the checkout lane, the smell is literally making me gag. The people around me aren't too appreciative either. I will say that's absolutely the quickest I've gotten through the checkout lane.
We get to the van, I put her on the floor and grab what I need to change her. And, man, it's an ugly ugly sight. She wakes up, very unamused and very unhappy about the situation at hand and starts screaming and kicking. The diaper goes flying (still not sure how she did that!) and I hop to the side on one foot and manage to avoid the, uhhh... fallout. The pavement, however, is a mess. Literally.
I change my screaming, thrashing baby and have to put her in her car seat sans pants as they are covered in poo. We have heat, she'll be fine. Except, I can't find my car keys. I go through all the bags in the back, look under the van, in my pockets, in the front seat, in the floor where I had S, in the bag where I put the dirty diaper and pants and could not find the keys. Oh, NO! I had to have them to open the car, so I know they are close. The only place I haven't looked is the pile of poo on the ground. I stand there for a second, S screaming bloody murder, debating on how bad I want those keys. Surely, surely, there's not enough poo on the ground to hide a set of keys. Meanwhile S is screaming so loud that I'm worried I'm going to draw a crowd. Worse yet, I'm standing over a pile of poo. Maybe I can call R and have him bring me the spare key. No, he's already left work and he never has his cell on since no one has the number. Still, I just can't stick my hand in the poo. In a moment of what I consider to be genius, I grab a wipe and sort of poke at the poo. Doesn't seem like anything could be in there, and it wasn't like it was that much down there anyway.
Then it hits me...I can't leave the poo there. So I grab a bunch of wipes and pick up the majority of it, toss it in the bag with the dirty diaper and pants and decide to throw it all away. I unbuckle S from her car seat, pick her up, and...... there are my keys. No WONDER she was screaming. Good grief. I grab the keys, put S back in her seat, and grab a bottle of water and some tide from the back of the van to wash away the poo. Then we hightail it out of there. On the way home I keep smelling poo, and I think that I must have stepped in it. When we get home, R pulls in behind us and we decide to grab a pizza for dinner. I bring in the groceries, we put pants on S, and off we go. As we get home again, I realize the reason I keep smelling poo is because it's all over my sleeve. Maybe I was also walking around with a huge rip in my pants to make my embarrassment trifecta complete, but I'll admit I'm not ready to look and see yet.
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