Once or twice a year, my Pretty Bride leaves for several days, and this year’s such trip is this week. Because I had my military drill weekend last weekend, and because we had a party to attend Saturday night before she flew away (and because the Alabama-Florida game was on at the party), we never really went over such trivial matters as what time the children are supposed to arrive at (or leave) their schools, what they eat for lunch, where their pediatrician is located (or his name), etc. Instead, she took a cab to the airport Sunday afternoon while I served our country from several miles away. Here’s how it’s gone so far:
Day 1 (Monday):
0530: awake to screaming children. stagger into kitchen; they follow. ask what they like to eat; am told “oatmeal.” pull out can; follow directions; hand 3 bowls to 3 hungry children; receive groans and malcontent over consistency and general suckitude of breakfast. learn a few hours later via text message that i should have used milk instead of water, and that it requires more time in the microwave than i’d allowed.
0820: leave for school. maddie’s in a ballerina skirt. owen is in a t-shirt his sister used to wear, but it’s concealed with a jacket. follow the five-year-old’s lead to figure out to which class each child goes. right before dropping off maddie (and after owen is inside his locked classroom), i learn one of their classmates has a peanut allergy, and i should NOT have made PB&J sandwiches for owen. i imagine what it feels like to have a dead kid on my conscience for a few seconds but tear off to my office anyway while crossing my fingers.
1500: get pulled out of a deposition because owen’s teacher is on the phone with my paralegal and wants to know if the 65-year-old lady who claims to be my mother is allowed to leave with my children. am scolded for not putting her on “the list.” this is the same lady whom i emailed about being a sex offender on accident.
Day 2 (Tuesday):
0545: attempt to make oatmeal for 3 screaming children again, but this time, despite using milk, still incur wrath of the discontented over its watery consistency. suffer through cries of “we want mommy to come back!” for the next hour. put owen in his sister’s clothes just to piss him off. intentionally forget his cover up this time. allow maddie to wear her shoes on the wrong feet and to color her hair red via some spray crap her big sister left too close to the edge of the counter.
0800: cram two screaming children into the back seat while reminding them they can’t bring toys or food into daddy’s brand new company car. they promise not to make messes if i let them treat daddy’s car like they do mommy’s. feign temporary hearing loss.
1030: owen’s teacher is calling me again, because he’s shoved a bean up his nose, and they can’t get it out. i ask if we can just “ride it out” and let it work its way out on its own. get told “no–it’ll get infected!” in a tone that could be construed as condescending, or at best, preachy. realize i don’t know who our children’s doctor is. learn my bride has written our doctor’s name down for the school, so the school tells me, but i call his office and learn they can’t help him.
1115: take boy to emergency room at childrens healthcare of atlanta. tell 2 intake women in lobby what happened; owen gets a wristband; i sit down to work a bit.
1130: get sent to patient room with “cinderella” playing on the tv. tell 2 more women what happened to owen, reading directly from the school’s “incident report” each time so that i get the correct nostril and member of the legume family.
1135: start eating from owen’s lunchbox, even though we were told by 2 different nurses he couldn’t eat once we’ve arrived at the hospital, because screw those people who want us to be hungry at a time like this.
1215: lady i think is a doctor but is really a nurse practitioner walks in and asks which EAR has the NUT in it. try not to get pissed off. owen points to his swollen nose. we get verbally reprimanded for eating.
1220: owen is wrapped in a sheet that acts as a straightjacket while a nurse and i hold him down. he screams, “i’m all done, daddy! let me down, daddy!” while crying at the plastic hooked toothpick-looking contraption that spins, scrapes, and grabs inside his right nostril. no dice.
1225: syringe is inserted into owen’s right nasal cavity, and a chickpea i’m certain says “titleist” on it is sucked out. we unwrap him and tell him he’s finished. nurse practitioner offers to let us keep the foreign object as a ‘souvenir.” i decline.
1227: get paperwork telling us to follow up with his pediatrician. i tell owen to go ahead and open his lunchbox back up, because i’m needing half his cheese stick in a big way.
1300: drop owen off at our house for his requested “alone time with thomas the tank engine trains.” pour a drink before returning to work.
Dare I ask who watched the poor boy after you went back to work?
@lisa, My mom was at our house, luckily!
nothing about this didn’t make me laugh
@flutter, Laughing at others’ misfortune? I roll the same way.
Obviously you need to sacrifice goat to the oatmeal fairy…
@Dave2, I opted to give them cold cereal today instead.
You have canned oatmeal? Are you sure that wasn’t something else?
I can just hear my own kids crying “all done” on the hospital exam table. I would need a drink too.
@BetaDad, It’s more like a cylindrical box with a Quaker on it.
Yeah, the nurse had the nerve to laugh at his cries of “All done!”
Helpful Daddy Scratches Parenting Tip®: It’s better if you just drink the whole time.
@DaddyScratches, This is why you’re smarter than I am.
I can’t wait to see Pretty Bride’s response to all this when she returns. 🙂
@unfinished, Yeah, she must be too busy to read blogs this week. What up with that trash?
Yeah, I can never make oatmeal like my wife either. It’s like a skill that requires the expulsion of a placenta or something.
@SFD, In that case, I’ll just continue to suck at oatmeal making and be happy about it.
Dude. I’m hiring you as our babysitter. And sending you some vodka. Stat.
@CMG, I prefer that the latter precede the former.
This is terrible. Okay, it’s terribly funny! I love horror stories having to do with kids and beans in orifices and watery oatmeal! My son is a lawyer and has four kids. You and he sound very much alike. Great post! I hope you still are married.
@Linda, Your son is crazy, too, then. Glad to hear it.
He’s certifiable. His wife is a saint to put up with him.
The mice may fuck up, but it’s pure, comic gold!!
(Glad Owen’s okay!)
@SL, I suppose it is. I gotta have something to put on a dad blog, right?
Tell Owen congratulations! Having something stuck up your nose is, I think, a right of passage for boys.
My baby brother had a grape.
@Britt, A rite of passage I’m glad I forwent as a young boy.
My husband makes the oatmeal for our son because I, “don’t make it right,” never mind the fact that I make it exactly as his father does and IT TASTES THE SAME! Who knew that there was a “right” way to make oatmeal? My husband probably sprinkles it with magic.
@candice, I sprinkle my johnson with magic, and that’s how come we have so many children.
Dear Sweet Husband,
Please remind me to make you a master list of all such information so that in the unlikely event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, you and our children will have a life raft to which to cling.
I love you. And I’m horrified. Booking an earlier return flight right this instant.
Your
Pretty Bride
@PB, Yes–do that!
You two are hysterical. Just read about your trip to Hawaii too. Really glad I have teens:)
@Krista, We one one teen. I don’t want to have more than that at this point in my life.
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