One of Those Moments

This is my first official week of maternity leave! It has gone really well.
Except that somehow in the past two days I've managed to strain my sciatic nerve. Which means that far from getting everything done, that I dreamed of accomplishing while on maternity leave, it now hurts to do anything but sit still. (Oddly enough sitting still was not on my list of things to do on my maternity leave.)

So, I've just been taking everything a little slower than usualy and stopping every 10-15 mintues to sit down and rest for 15-20 minutes. Fine. Everything was going well, until it was time to pick up the kidos from school.

My husband switched one of his night shifts to a day shift this week, so he was at work and would need to be picked up after his shift ended at 4:00. I realized as I was heading out the door at 2:30 that the younger kids had try-outs for the school play and would not be getting out until 4:30. So, knowing we would need to coordinate this, I hastily call my husband. He answers the phone but says he can't talk. Hmm... well, I don't have a cell phone at the moment, and we're out of minutes on the car phone, so we'll have to wing it.

I go pick up my eleven-year-old at middle school, and since we have an hour-and-a-half until the younger kids get out, we stop for milkshakes and then drive to the elementary school. She wants to go inside and see former friends and teachers, so I turn around to get the three-year-old out of his seat, and realize that he has no shoes. Really?? Okay, we usually have a few pairs in the back seat, but you guessed it, one of the first things I accomplished on my maternity leave was to clean out the car!

So, I send in my eleven-year-old and try to find something to entertain my three year old in the car for over an hour. I end up letting him move to the middle seat (since the car is parked) he can sit in his brother's booster seat and play with the ipod. This makes him happy. After the hour and a half is over, I'm anxiously waiting for the eleven-year-old to bring the eight and nine year old back to the car as planned. Only they haven't come yet. I'm starting to get worried that my husband is stranded at his work with no way to call and tell me. So, I start getting my bare-foot three-year-old out of the car to go look for them. (Remember the whole sciatic nerve thing?? Yeah, also means I can't lift anything -especially three-year-olds - so now he has to walk bare-foot into the school) Only now he mentions that he peed his pants. Really??? But he had a pull-up on, only aparently not a very absorbant one. Now his brother's booster seat is wet with pee. Great!

Well now, I take my bare-foot dripping-with-pee three-year-old into the school to find my other kids. Who are on their way out. They are late because my eight-year-old was the very last kid in the entire school to audition! Of course, now he remembers that he borrowed a pencil from a teacher, so he immediately turns around and runs across the corner of the parking lot to return it to her. Only he slips and falls on the asphalt because his back pack strap has broken off. (A fact he mentioned this morning as we were late getting into the car) A fact also pointed out to me by the teacher who saw him fall, and ran to help him before, I his pregnant limping mother with the wet, bare-footed three-year-old in toe could get to him.

He is of course sobbing, he's scraped his elbow, both forearms and the palms of his hands. We're late, I have to tell him he can't sit in his regular seat, because his brother peed in it. He now has to sit by his nine-year-old sister who is very indignant that she has to sit next to her brother, because he is upset, and she doesn't want to have anything to do with him. As soon as he sits down he wants his new ipod. Which causes another torrent of sobbing because apparently his three-year-old brother has changed the settings on his favorite game and now it is in French.

We finally get everyone buckled, albeit in the wrong seats, and we get moving as fast as we can to get home to see if Daddy found another way home from work, or if he's walking by this point, or if he's just hanging out waiting for us. Only we seem to be completely out of gas. And the only gas station we pass on the way home is the gas station that only takes cash or debit cards. (You guessed it, I only had a credit card with me!) Now, we're headed down the freeway, just hoping we make it home, and my three-year-old decides to unlock the car door. This does not sit well with me at this point, so now, I'm yelling at him about being safe in the car, and how the last time he didn't listen in the car he had to go to bed, and how none of us want that again, plus this day would really not get better, if we lost a car door or a three-year-old on the freeway. About five minutes later, he starts to gag, and all I can think is if we start vomiting in the too-clean-to-find-shoes car I am going to quit this motherhood gig once and for all!

Thankfully, he did not throw up. We did make it home without running out of gas. We found my husband at home, who forgot to mention that he had already made arrangements with a co-worker to drive him home. Of course his next comment was: "What's for dinner?" followed closely by: "Did you know there are ants in our closet and they are all over my white dress shirts?"

I'm still considering this motherhood gig and weather I'm really cut out for it!!!