One More Mommy

Thoughts of a mom and her husband, son, daughter, pets, friends, job (or lack thereof), house, family, trying to be more ecologically aware...

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Rookie Mistake

I had two errands I wanted to run last night. Two. One, to go get a new phone because I had no visible screen on mine and it was getting annoying to only be able to call my husband and my mother because I don't have anyone else's phone number memorized. Two, to go pick up The Podiatrist's shower gift because no one had bought off her registry yet, and it's depressing to look at an unbought registry. Which you tend to do obsessively because WHEEE! And I will take the opportunity now to mock her for her six registries. SIX. Crazy woman. Of course, two of them have pretty much only their china on there, so it might be regional things. But still. SIX.

So, I picked up Luke from daycare and we headed home to eat. He had a bottle at 4, and we got home about 4:45. I popped him in his chair and started him with pear slices while I tried to microwave some ancient Healthy Choice meals. Apparently these things don't keep that long. The dog and cats got the meat from two meal and the rest went in the trash.

By this time, Luke had moved onto goldfish crackers, and I had moved onto making potstickers and rice. Luke demanded my potstickers (whatever I'm eating must be better) and ate all the meat from one of those. Then I gave him a slice of roast beef. Then he had some animal crackers. Did I mention he had an 8 ounce bottle an hour earlier?!?!

After dinner, about 15 minutes of running around the house in joyous abandon ensued. It was great, he was full, and ecstatic. And then I decided to run my errands. At 5:40.

The coat wasn't good, and the initial getting into the car seat resulted in a slightly annoyed Luke. We arrived at the Cingular store, and due to my mooching off my mother by being on her family talk plan, we had to wait until I could get ahold of her to get the new phone. Which meant we waited around the store for 25 minutes. Luke was not thrilled with this, but there was some fun to be had in my purse and with the wall signs. By the time I got the phone he was cranky, and getting him in his car seat was a bit of a struggle.

And here's where I got stupid, and made my rookie mistake.

See, I was OUT. I hate going out on weeknights to run errands. And I had an agenda. I wanted to finish my two errands.

Veteran mommies are thinking "YOUR agenda is crap, woman! The signs are there! He's been going to bed at 6:30 lately, and it's 6:10 now. Give up! Go home!"

And I ignored this. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond. I knew want I wanted, it was one thing. ONE thing. I wasn't going to linger.

Stupid stupid stupid.

When I arrived at BB&B, Luke was sound asleep. And snoring. I took him out of the car seat and he groaned and blinked. I got the car seat shopping cart and threw my purse in the basket and tried to put him in the seat. Oh, the screaming. Oh, the back arching.

So I carried him to the back of the store, where the registry desk is (I should have printed it out! Oh, the folly!). The registry desk is conveniently located in the middle of the fine china displays.

And I'm pushing a cart with one hand and holding a screaming, writhing baby with the other. Through fine china displays.

I shout out The Podiatrist's name, and the horrified young girls at the desk print out the registry. I tell them exactly what I am looking for on the registry, and what it's price is. Rattled, it takes them a few minutes to find it, and they quickly direct me out of the fine china.

Away I go. I pick it up, and in order to put it in the cart, have to put Luke down. He drops to his knees and clings to my pants leg, flinging his head back as he screams. Resituated, I pick him up and head out towards the register.

Apparently now all store associates have been alerted (perhaps simply by the screaming) to the presence of this idiot young mother and her highly enraged child. An associate appears from the aisles to offer to push my cart to the register so I can better focus on carrying Squirms-n-Screams-A-Lot.

At the register, they take the registry from me and quickly ring me up. Another associate arrives to carry my one (1) item out to the car, which is parked less than twenty feet from the front door. After initially starting to say, No, that's okay, I gratefully accept the help.

And then I try to put Luke IN his car seat again. I seriously thought I wasn't going to be able to do it. He stood, he turned around, and of course, he screamed bloody murder. I sang. I sat. I soothed. He tried to crawl over the back of the car seat (rearfacing, remember) into the front seat. I couldn't even bend him into a sitting position. Finally, I gave him a sippy of water, and he sucked it down, happy with his self soother (he doesn't use pacifiers).

The transfer to bed was simple, he woke up while I carried him upstairs, but when I laid him down on the floor to change him to his night diaper, he rolled over on his stomach and promptly fell asleep.

Did you know you can put a diaper on a baby laying face down? You can.

And then I scooped him into bed. And collapsed myself. It was 7:20.

1 Comments:

Blogger *lynne* said...

yowch! I was totally hooked onto your description, hanging on to every word, visualising all you were going through... you poor thing!

1:10 PM  

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