Honestly, the mental mistakes began yesterday night as I was getting ready for bed. I knew it was Thursday night, but for some reason I had Wednesday's schedule in my head, and I set my alarm with plenty of time to get the boys to daycare and make it to work by 9:30.
When my alarm went off I heard my wife getting the 3 year old ready to leave... "Oh yeah, it's Friday-- she takes the bigger buddy boy in on her way into work today." *SNOOZE* but before too much longer my gut grumbled greasily and I knew I had to get up.
What I didn't know yet was that I was going to make an attempt to propel myself into orbit with a hydrolic jet. I felt awful. Among other things, I was feeling guilty for soiling the toilet. When Mom had come over yesterday to help with the kids, she had scrubbed it clean... and this was... unclean. The type of unclean where I needed Clorox wipes to clean the underside of the toilet seat.
I had weighed myself before I sat down. Once I was finally done and cleaned up, I got back on the scale. I had lost 1.6 lbs. And then, I wasn't done anymore. Round two struck. while that worked it's way through my system, I posted to FB and called in to work - there was no way I was going to make it by 9:30 in this condition. In between my 3rd and 4th bouts I tracked down some Imodium.
I found some irony in calling in today. I had seriously considered playing hookey on Wed to get a research paper written for school, but I just couldn't do it. Work needs me, and I am a responsible adult, and a reliable person, and all that jazz. I have a duty. Today doodie was more important than duty. I didn't call in on Wed, but spent all day Thurs before class grinding on it, and got it to an acceptable enough place that after only a few in-class revisions the instructor dubbed it an A worthy paper... Now I call in on my NEXT shift instead, when I'm not under the gun.
Last time I was late getting the 6mo old to daycare, they were concerned, so once I felt it was safe to venture more than a minute from the bathroom, I packed up the baby, gave him the last his anti-ear-infection meds and a bottle, and headed to daycare.
As I was pulling into the parking lot I thought about how I always check in on the 3 yr old when I drop the baby off, and see how he's acting at lunch time... but it's pretty darned early for lunch, isn't it? This is when I first realize that this is FRIDAY and that means I should be on FRIDAY'S schedule... I wouldn't typically drop Nugget off for another hour and a half, because I'm not scheduled to work until 12:05. This is when I decided I must have flushed my brain today.
I went and got a McIcedTea, and wondered about town for about an hour. By then the boy was starting to get restless, but I didn't figure dropping him off 20 minutes early today would hurt anything... Besides... I needed to find another bathroom... I wasn't certain there were more problems, but I didn't want to risk a fart at this point.
I head home and see a garage sale on my street, so I stop and look. There's a steel dump truck toy that my older boy would adore, but there is no one manning the sale. I knock on the door, and offer $2. Offer accepted, I take the prize home and leave in where the boy will notice it first thing when he comes in the door.
But walking home from the sale I noticed something I felt was photogenic, and I hadn't shot much recently... since the light was good and I didn't have much on my slate just now, I grabbed my camera and headed back to take a few shots. The shots of the neighbor's discarded furniture didn't come out quite like I had seen it in my mind's eye... but the crack in the weatherworn, wet sidewalk with the helicopter seeds pretty much did. In the full resolution image, there's a ton of little details.
I worked on polishing up one of my other English papers so I can turn in a revised draft for an improved score next week, and while I was chipping away at that, The Wife came home with the boys. Soon after, we headed out to Mama China for dinner. My wife and I have been trying to arrange a Chinese buffet night for some time now, but things keep falling through. The big boy is old enough now that we have to pay for him, but that's fine... he likes the fruit, chicken, noodles, and sweets. He eats well when we go to "the cookie restaurant." My wife also gets the buffet, but since I have such a limited capacity, I order a dish off the menu and will have leftovers for a week. The 6 mo old "eats" free, so Michele lets him play with a few rice noodles, a smashed pea, a grape cut into eighths, a section of mandarin orange cut up... and I joke "What, no pudding?"
The boy plays with the foods and considerably more of his tiny helping ends up on the floor than in his belly. When wifey goes up for seconds, she also comes back with tiny dollops of the 2 pudding flavors on their cold service bar. She breaks out the baby spoon and readies a itty-bit of the chocolate pudding, and puts it in the child's mouth. He looks unhappy, drawing an "Awwww" from his folks. Then there's a little cough and my wife says, "buddy, it's just pudding, I don't think there's anything there to choke on." And that was my 6 mo old's cue to spew like a fountain.
It came in three rapid volleys, and thankfully didn't draw much attention from the waitstaff or other guests. We cleaned him up, changed his clothes, wiped things down as well as we could with a pile of napkins and a few diaper wipes, and took the boys home.
On the way home my darling wife pointed out this was sort of a belated mother's day dinner, since that's about when our first Chinese Buffet plans starting getting derailed... And that makes 2 mother's day dinners in a row that ended when one of our children puked on her. Last year, the one that was outside her belly at the time got sick at the steakhouse we were at with my parents on Mother's day. I told her next year we should get a baby sitter.
