Please don’t make me leave the house with the kids again. Please don’t make me leave the house with the kids again. Please don’t make me leave the house with the kids again.
I am what one might call a sociable introvert. I do like people and I do enjoy having friends and going out and doing things, but I’d be happiest if I could limit all interaction to email, text message, and Facebook, with the occasional phone call. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about things like tone of voice, pace of conversation, awkward silences, eye contact (I feel like I appear either to be having a seizure or to be a laser-focused psycho), and what the heck I’m supposed to do with my hands — none of which I have ever mastered and all of which give me serious agita.
It’s hard enough to get out the door on my own when I am endlessly reviewing everything that may or may not have gone wrong last time I attended a social engagement of any type, trying not to forget anything, trying to peel two kids off my legs, and trying to avoid leaving the house in something marked with food, puke, pee, or dog hair.
Now throw two spirited, strong-willed, and extremely fast toddlers into the mix. Toddlers I have to take with me. Toddlers who require an entire separate bag (or two) of CRAP, any of which, if I am caught without it, creates a crisis of epic proportions. The day I left the house for a five-minute errand with no diaper bag was the day Emmett projectile vomited all over himself and and his car seat and needed to be stripped completely naked in a stranger’s driveway and cleaned off with McDonald’s napkins that have been in the glove box for 2 years and then had to ride home in his barfy seat wearing a vomit-covered cloth diaper and nothing else. It’s even worse if I forget someone’s sippy cup or don’t bring enough “mee-nah” (banana).
No matter what I do, how much I prepare in advance, or how eager I am to get wherever I’m going, by the time I finally get out the door I don’t even want to go anymore. Not to mention the fact that I’m usually so late at that point that anyone I’m trying to do stuff with is probably already done and on their way home. Today, I got up early, had breakfast planned and clothes laid out, and still left 45 minutes late because 5 minutes before we were going to get in the car:
- I tripped over something and gashed my leg. I had to clean up the thing I tripped over, clean up my leg, and then move stuff around so no one else would trip over it.
- By that time, the boys, in previously clean diapers, decided they both wanted to use the potty. Both of them. This is an elaborate process that has absolutely nothing to do with actually peeing or pooping in the toilet, but requires approximately 10 minutes per child of stripping naked, balancing on the toilet, screaming “NO ALL DONE!” repeatedly before panickedly screeching “ALL DONE ALL DONE ALL DONE!”, unrolling (them) and rerolling (me) half the roll of toilet paper, banging the toilet lid closed, and then flushing at least twice before putting on a fresh diaper and getting dressed again. Per child.
- I realized that they had both peed in their diapers (probably immediately before asking for the potty or while waiting for a turn, of course), so I went to get new inserts and left the boys in the not-as-childproof-as-I-thought bathroom for .0037 seconds. Apparently this was enough time for Emmett to open the toilet and throw in all the clothes and diaper covers. I did manage to stop him before he flushed, thank goodness. It took about 10 more minutes to extract everything from the toilet, deal with that, and find (and apply) new diapers and clothes.
So today, I went out of duty and practically in tears. It’s almost 10 hours later and my leg still hurts like hell, and my day did not get any better.
And on a funny/foreboding note, Miles stole produce at the grocery store, where we stopped on the way home from our disastrous date (which was basically no fun because my kids only like me or each other when we are home and there are no witnesses). I wore Emmett and pushed Miles in the seat of the shopping cart. Every time I turned back to the cart with a new item, Miles had something else in his hand/mouth and I have no idea how he got it and there were no other people around us to have given it to them. I think he may actually be a Jedi. Must look into this. But first, I need a drink.
Aside from copious amounts of alcohol, what do you recommend to ease the pain of leaving the house at this stage? Because at this point becoming a total shut-in is sounding reeeeeeeally good…
This is great! I remember those days with Joe, and it was hard enough with one. I remember one of my childless friends referring to me as a pack mule because of all the stuff I carried for one day of activities. As far as the grocery store goes, I found that having a brief conversation about how we act in the grocery store right before going in made a world of difference (as did bribery at my more desperate moments). Don’t worry, you’re doing great!