Mayhem, etc.

Here's the thing about having 2 children 21 months apart: you have two children 21 months apart. I've been thinking more and more of Phook as a big kid lately, since she does so much to help me out and can talk so much more now. But every now and then I'm harshly reminded that I am the mother of two very small, needy children. Generally this manifests itself when two people are crying in unison, and I'm trying really hard to breathe deeply and avoid adding a third crier to the party. But occasionally all hell breaks loose and I find myself sweating and panting and scrambling and wondering how any Catholic women of yesteryear survived their fruitful childbearing years.

Let me provide an example. The other day, naps ended early, leaving a solid 3 hours between end of nap and arrival of daddy, which is too fuggin' long. We decided to hop in the stroller and go visit the kidlets' great-great aunt and uncle who live on the other side of town. We rolled over there and visited without incident, with the exception of their home being an old-person-only temperature of about 94 degrees, which resulted in my children's faces literally turning beet red over the course of a 45 minute visit. After we left, I decided to take the long way walking home as a cool down, and the long way took me past the lovely recent addition to our community that is the Dollar General store. This is not one of the dollar stores in which everything is a dollar. Quite the contrary. It's like a mini-Walmart where everything is overpriced by about 30% as a means for hosing the residents of small communities when they can't get out of town to buy a birthday card or laundry detergent in time. I don't go there. Except the other day, when I had time to kill and the pressing need for black tights for Phook. Which is to say, I was feeling delusional.

So I took the double stroller in the joint and headed to the clothing section, where I began my ultimately futile hunt for black tights. Phook started saying, "Out, out!" and I probably should have just left her locked into her stroller seat, but I was apparently feeling dangerous, so I let her out to rock it like a biped. She proceeded to do some inventory control procedures on their stock of children's undergarments, which I took as an opportunity to inform her that she shouldn't go falling in love with anything she saw in that section, because I'm too lazy to potty train her at this juncture, and as far as I'm concerned she can rock the dipes until she goes to college. At that point, Snuffy started fretting a little bit. I thought, "Meh." Phook then discovered the toy/lead-poisoning section, and I let her browse. I was checking out the dolls, and she stubbornly fixated on the monster trucks. We looked at various items for awhile, and I kind of indicated to her that maybe she could get something (she has not reached the stage where she actually asks for things much in stores), and then she made her pooping face. You know, the "I'm pooping right now" face. At that point, Snuffy escalated from fretting to howling, and I remembered that I sort of hadn't fed him in about 4 hours or so, so maybe he had a reason to speak up. At that point I ran into this awkward semi-co-worker of Big K's, and she felt like chatting. Awesome.

So, to recap. I had a poop-slathered daughter rooting through the toxic toy section. I had a son who was screaming the relentless hungry baby scream. I had awkward lady wanting to socialize despite lots of really strong clues that I need to get moving. So I was stammering, "Um, he's really hungry, gotta go, yeah he is huge, born on the 4th of July, mmm hmm, yup, where is Phook - lost her, yup, he does look a bit like his sister, gotta go, mmm hmm, bye." Phook was at that point cruising the aisles in a manner that made her fiendishly hard to corral. By the time I got her and grabbed the first matchbox car I saw for her, Snuffy was at an eleven. I put Phook in the stroller seat, and in my haste, I only hooked one of the waist straps into the middle strap that comes up between the legs, thinking nothing of it.

I eventually got us to the checkout to buy her car and a frame for a new picture of us for Big K's office. I should have just left the crap and aborted the mission, given Snuffy's decibel level. But no. I pressed on. So I was in line, attempting to pay, and Phook started saying, "Out? Out? Out!" and jacking around with the waist strap. I was paying about 12% attention to her as I was trying to pay and rock the stroller a bit in a useless attempt to calm Snuffy, and then a lady behind me started saying, "Um, ma'am, I think your daughter really wants out. She's a bit hung up there." So I turned around, and saw that Phook had essentially gotten down out of the stroller seat, but was hung up by her one leg that was still strapped in, so she was kind of suspended and leaning out of the thing backwards. I was at the point that I was already having about 19 physical anxiety symptoms, including an insta-headache, perspiration, rapid breathing, burning desire for an IV-drip of pasta, and a very barely contained urge to just break down, get down on my knees, tear at my hair, and scream the F-word. Instead I got poop girl out of her ligatures, finished my transaction with 7 assholes staring slack-jawed at my clown show, and pushed us towards the bathroom at the front of the store.

That's when things went to a whole new level. Okay, this was an indoor toileting facility in a retail establishment. Not a gas station on an interstate off-ramp somewhere in Kentucky. And yet, hanging outside the bathroom door was a key to the facility suspended on a chain from about 10 inches of 2x4. That would be a chunk of wood, friends. Why? Why not just have a bathroom door that locks from the inside like any normal store? I have no idea. I will never know. So now I've got the reeking Phook clamoring around outside the door, Snuffy just absolutely bleating, and I'm reaching over the giant double stroller trying to manhandle this block of wood with a key attached to it, trying to coax the stupid door to open. I finally got it open and got the stroller and the Phook inside, where I discovered there is no changing station. Dude. I whipped out my changing pad and changed poor Phook on the filthy bathroom floor, gagging and hating myself all the while. And Phook knew she had that matchbox car in the bag that was in the stroller's undercarriage, so she was rolling around trying to get into the bag while I was attempting to deal with her waste products under extreme duress. Finally, I got her changed, but not without some unsavory pood-to-hand contact. I then threw the soiled diaper right into their garbage can with extreme prejudice. I'm normally a fan of cleaning up after my own dog, but they deserved a stinky garbage can in exchange for their wood block shenanigans. At that point, Snuffy was purple-faced and had tears rolling down his cheeks, and I was on the verge of attempting to end myself by drowning via bubbler (that would be a water fountain, for those of you who don't live in Wisconsin). Alas, there was no bubbler in that cheap-ass joint, so it wasn't even an option. I dragged us out of the bathroom, getting the front stroller wheel hung up on the door frame on the way out, at which point I yelled, "Get me out of this hell hole!" in the general direction of the cashiers before crashing my way out the front door in a blaze of glory.

We got home and Snuffy got fed. I'd like to say that I then mixed myself a gin and tonic in a mop bucket, but it didn't pan out that way. No, no, no. I just calmly told Big K about the latest chapter in my parenting chronicles and asked Phook if she was up for watching an episode of her favorite show, which is of course Dancing With the Stars. I think she likes Warren Sapp. Shiz.

In other news, Phook has yet another plague. She's a lot better today, but yesterday had a fever of 103, a barking seal cough, and a sore throat as indicated by repeatedly saying "ouch," opening her mouth, and pointing to the back of her throat. I called the doctor who of course told me she didn't need to be seen unless she was leaking spinal fluid from the nose or had a fracture with bone exposed through the flesh, so we powered through it with a humidifier, a bunch of the magic that is apple juice, and daddy in the Phookbed half the night. Having a bunch of little buddies and little kiddie outings means exposure to lots and lots of extra special bugs. I'm considering putting us in forced seclusion for the remainder of the winter, but I'm guessing mental health will trump physical health. The good news is that she coughed with enough frequency yesterday that we quickly learned the skill of covering our mouths when we cough. So that's handled. But dude, please, can we catch a break here?

These semi-catatonic women who go on talk shows and talk about the benefits of polygamy and how they sincerely dig having 4 sister wives? Yeah, I get it now. A wife to tend to the sick kid. A wife to obtain tights. A wife to make dinner. And me, just sitting nursing The Pig while I watch the crack that is Brothers & Sisters and eat frosting out of the container with a spoon. Big K's a large man. I could surely share...