Eureka

I had a revelation the other day about why moms never get back to their college weight---well, at least not after you have more than one kid. Bear with me here as I'm sure this isn't the news of the century, but I realized that the only time I can sit down to eat without one or the other girl hanging off of me is in the car. And what do you eat in the car? Fast food, exactly. Add to that the fact that I spend most of my day making sure small persons have food and forget to eat until like, 4 pm, and you've got a seriously noshy Heather, who succumbs eagerly to the siren call of the Wendy's or McDonald's. I even, so help me god, stopped at a Jack in the Box the other day.

I hate Jack in the Box.

I don't mean to suggest that moms of one kid have it easier. But at least when one is asleep, or happy, THAT'S IT. In our house, it's fairly infrequent that both girls are independently occupied, asleep, or otherwise content simultaneously. I'm kind of surprised that Peabo is allowing me to type this post right now, to be honest---perhaps I should be eating something healthier than the coffee and carrot cake I scarfed down while Gene had her earlier today.

I am also convinced that the fat and salt in fast food has medicinal properties, as evidenced by how much better I felt Friday evening after stopping at Wendy's on the way home from the retinal specialist. Bean had to go in for a check up, and this place is my personal 6th circle of hell. Not quite 7th, but damn close. Basically you have to allow at least 2 hours for your appointment...they tell you this flat out. It's primarily elderly people, which makes sense, I guess, but of course, I then get evil looks when I drag my big ass double stroller and messy, noisy small children in.
Well, they seem like evil looks to me, maybe they're just the product of pupil dilation.

You have to picture this. It's a dead quiet waiting room, except for Peabo cranking up because she's hungry (Bean is fortunately playing quietly with her Slinky). I'm in a coat and Peebs is all bundled up too. This is going to be interesting to do discreetly, but I manage to cover her sort of with my scarf, pull the coat around slightly, and bend forward almost double to shove her mouth onto my boob to shut her up. The only good part about doing this in an ophthalmological setting is that most people in there probably couldn't see two feet in front of them. Peabo eats, then lets out the loudest, fruitiest sounding poop ever.

Great. I'm not about to change her diaper there but I don't know where the bathroom is, and besides, I'm hoping they will call us soon for the doctor, and you just *know* that that would happen the minute we step out. She's going to sit in poop. We finally get called in, I get Peebs changed, and now Bean is cranking up to level three unhappy because it's late in the afternoon, the eye drops feel funky, and the big chair has a plastic thing on it that makes it super slidey. Okay. Oh, and then I smell something that seems like Bean poop. Okay. I collect Bean, discover it was all sound and fury signifying very little, and then Peabo wants to eat again. Okay. So I latch her on, hoping to god that the doctor doesn't walk in right then; I know he's been to medical school and this is no big deal, but still. Manage to get her off and snapped back up to decency before he walks in and asks if the quietly howling Bean wants a L-O-L-L-I- (pop). I'm so out of it that I think he's trying to verify the spelling of Bean's name and so I say, "it's E-L-". He respells. I clue in and say PLEASE.

Of course, does she want the lollipop? She does not. On the other hand, he is a pretty chill guy and a great doctor, so he deals with her quickly, and even double checks Peabo's retinas (look fine although he didn't of course have her dilated). We then trek down to another room to do an ultrasound of Bean's eye, which was pretty funky looking. She was exceedingly displeased with this, and of course, Peabo wanted to show her support, so now we've got two of them wailing again. I lug them both back to the stroller, and of course drop my bag on the floor while everything goes skitter skitter skitter out of it. Sigh. Fortunately one of the techs scooped it all up for me but by this time I was feeling a bit twitchy. I couldn't even look at the people in the waiting room as I left, though I suspect that I would have seen pitying looks more than daggers, but you never know.

The only good thing was that I never wanted to scream during the whole process. I did however, start to get that uncontrollable giggle that happens at moments of stress, and thought, god, I'm going to wet my pants and this is totally ridiculous and why did I think it would be a great idea to have kids and oh god we have to stop at the market and I'm about to start laughing like a hyena and this is insane and oh thank god we're almost done.
I get to the market, pull into a parking spot and SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAMMMMM!
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

We are not going into Draeger's. No way, no how. I call Gene, laughing hysterically and ask him to grab some groceries on his way home, and we dub the girls the magically musical farting van Hoffmantrapps. I then stop at Wendy's and get way too much food for a "snack" as well as dinner for Bean because she is completely falling apart and it will be a miracle if I can get any food into her before she needs to crash (oh, she hadn't had a nap that day...nice, eh?) and we finally get home and lord am I glad tomorrow is Saturday.

But you know, I felt a hell of a lot better after a spicy chicken sandwich, 5 chicken nuggets with sweet and sour sauce, fries, and a Dr Pepper. I'm not sure carrot sticks and low fat cheese would have cut it. On the other hand, we inherited a third hand double jogging stroller in great condition, so maybe that will help me balance all this crap out.

Oh, I am so glad that the boys are older and that I usually only have to take L to all of his specialist appointments. They are also at a Children's Hospital, although we do visit the regular labs. The elderly patients are not amused by his whining about blood draws. Apparently I'm evil for making him do this! I feel your pain. Hematology (my personal 7th circle of hell) always takes at least 3 hours.