When we are having one of those moments when the kids are all running around and yelling, the baby is crying, the phone is ringing and the mac n' cheese is boiling over on the stove Chris always looks to the sky and says, "serenity now." It always makes us laugh which keeps him from losing his mind and me from crying.
I said it over and over to myself today but I think you need that someone to laugh it off with to really make it work.
Let me set the scene.
Doctors office. Crowded. Sneezing snotty kids everywhere. Me trying desperately to keep Grayson asleep in the car seat while not letting any other sick kid come near him. Me also trying to entertain Bailey and Parker with songs and finger play games so they will sit on the couch and not touch anything.
Ten minute of this and I start to go crazy. THIRTY minutes and I'm about to scream my new favorite phrase (WTF). SO thirty minutes of sitting and Parker was going nuts, climbing all over this couch, all over me, all over Bailey. UNTIL. Until she got up on the couch, lost her balance and fell head first onto the side table. I heard her face hit so I knew it was bad but didn't know just how bad until I saw the look on the mom's face who could see Parker's face (as I was behind her). I yanked her up and blood was EVERYWHERE. F-ing everywhere. She had split her face open. Literally.
Mom's are yelling at the receptionists to help, Grayson is screaming, Parker is screaming, I'm near frozen and Bailey is staring completely terrified.
So I rush Parker back into the office with two receptionists following me carrying Grayson, the car seat, the diaper bag and pulling Bailey by the hand, silent tears running down her face. They put me in a room where the nurse comes in and has me hold gauze on the cut to stop the bleeding. She then sits down and proceeds to ask why we're here.
TAKE CARE OF MY BLEEDING KID YOU IDIOT!
SO I tell her very calmly and loudly as I have to talk over Parker and Grayson who are both still screaming that we're there for the girls to get the flu vaccine and b/c Parker and Grayson are sick. She leaves me sitting and takes Grayson out to weigh him. When she gets back she stands there holding Gray trying to calm him down for TEN minutes until the doctor walked in.
WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN? MY KID IS BLEEDING!
The doctor is completely surprised at the blood and asks what happened (which means no one thought it was a good idea to interrupt her from the snot nosed kid next door to come take care of the bleeding one). We tell her, she looks at it, says it needs stitches and proceeds to check Grayson's ears/nose/throat.
WTF? DOESN'T BLOOD AND STITCHES COME FIRST?
He has an ear infection. She moves onto Parker and tries to check her ears/throat/nose but with my hand on her face, the gauze, the blood and the screaming I still swear she saw nothing and figures it's the same as Gray b/c she just said, "looks like a sinus infection" and proscribed the same medicine. She then tells me she'll be right back to deal with the cut.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! WTF?
For fifteen minutes (FIFTEEN MINUTES) I held Grayson on one knee and Parker on the other and sang "He's Got The Whole World in His Hands" at the top of my lungs. For fifteen minutes.
Then she comes back and says that she probably needs stitches but I'll have to go to the ER. I asked if there was anything she could do right then b/c I had no idea how to take all three kids to the ER by myself and she said steri-strips would be ok it just might leave a bit more of a scar. Fine. Whatever. Just do it.
Two steri-strips, a couple of flu vaccines and three screaming kids later it was time to go. My dad got there in time to help the girls pick out their stickers and walk me to the car (having arrived after my desperate call to my mom begging her to come help me).
I used to joke that my life could be a soap opera and sometimes I still think it could. That hour and a half would have made a great sitcom. Or something.
And I've decided I need to take up drinking. Because "serenity now" just doesn't do the trick sometimes.
Currently recovering and taking shots of Dew.
