One of Those Days

It all began this morning . . . no, make that last night . . . no, scratch that, it all began last Wednesday! A cold has been running through our home since Wednesday night when Mary got it. I was sick as a dog on Sunday, such that I actually stayed in pajamas most of the day and Chris took care of the children. I've been recuperating since then, back to minimal functioning level but feeling pretty rotten.


Then Monday night, Mary woke up four times between 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., such that I realized it was going to be a bad night. I went to bed, already resentful that I couldn't delve into the sewing project I wanted to try because Mary kept waking up. Then I lay there with insomnia for a couple more hours. I got four whole hours of sleep (punctuated by Mary's regular wakings to nurse) before Mary inexplicably woke at 4:00 a.m. and stayed awake for two hours. I finally got her to sleep at 6:00, but there was at that point no way I could physically fall asleep, so I got up to enjoy some alone time.

At 6:09, John woke up for the day.


At 6:18, Mary woke up for the day.


So much for alone time. Mama was extremely grumpy this morning. Still suffering from the cold, tired from getting less than my normal not-so-luxurious six hours of broken sleep nightly. I got the bright idea that if I was going to be tired and grumpy, we'd do errands to "get us out of the house." A change of scenery would do us good, right?


I got the kids loaded up and Mary declined to do a potty check before we left. We went to the first store and bought lacing cards for John, as he's been unlacing all his shoes and trying to lace things with the laces for a week. We came out of the store and, before walking to the next store, I asked Mary if she wanted to do a potty check and she did! I keep a traveling potty in the van because sometimes that is easier to use with toddlers than navigating public bathrooms. So Mary did a potty check but nothing happened. Well, as long as we were in the van, I would drive us to the other end of the strip mall instead of walking.


We drove to the other end of the strip mall for our second errand. I got the kids all unloaded and we trooped into the store, at which point Mary announced urgently, "Potty!" Oh, now she had a feeling. Being in an unfamiliar store and being parked right outside, I judged it easier to use our travel potty, so I dashed us out to the van and got Mary seated, where she finally did her business. Meanwhile, I let John sit in the driver's seat as a big treat, while I was standing on the side of our van, the sliding door open, helping Mary.


And then John touched a button.


He pulled the lever that opens the gas tank door. As soon as I heard the click, I said, "What are you doing? You're touching buttons! What is the first Rule of Buttons?! Never touch a button if you don't know what it does!" The way the Honda Odyssey is designed, the gas tank door is behind the sliding door when the sliding door is open. And if the sliding door is open when the gas tank door opens, there is a "safety feature" that causes the sliding door to lock in place, open. And there is no way to override it once it happens.


So that means it is "safer" to be stuck God-only-knows-where (what if I'd been parked in gangland or something?) with the door open, unable to drive safely, rather than risk getting some scratches in the paint because I close the sliding door while the gas tank door is open. This design feature is profiled at a crudely but aptly named website about bad designs.


I tried to figure out how to get my arm into the two-inch thin crevice to close the gas tank door. My arm is not that skinny. It was only 9:30 a.m. but the heat was nearly 90 degrees, the Southern humidity probably nearly 100%, and the heat radiating off the black asphalt of the parking lot had me drenched in sweat.


After several minutes, I called Chris to ask for advice. Of course, he said I needed to Get Help. Now, my temperament combined with aspects of my childhood caused me to be Very Independent. I loathe asking for help. For example, most of the time I would rather forgo my recipe and change my meal plan rather than ask a grocery store employee where to find a particular food ingredient. So, Chris told me that I needed to take the kids into the nearby hardware store and ask a man for help and I might have replied something about how "I would rather die" and that I would figure it out myself.


I stood there another 20 minutes or so working on it. I had various children's books in the car, so I tried to slide them in and use them to close the gas tank door. One large, thin hardcover book seemed promising. I worked with it for a long time. Chris called me back and I answered, "I'm almost ready to give up and ask for help." He asked if I'd rather he leave work and drive to come help me. I decided that if I were going to be "humiliated" by needing help, I'd rather it be by my husband than a stranger at the hardware store, so I accepted.


At that point, I almost took the hardcover book out of the crevice, but decided to give up and sit there since Chris was on his way. I sat there and steamed. Poor John felt mortified throughout because every time he asked something innocent like, "Could we close the door so that no flies come in the van?" I'd answer sharply, "No! We can't! Because you touched a button that you didn't know what it did and you broke something and now we are stuck!" (Not one of my better mothering moments.)


Chris showed up 15 minutes later with a long metal stick. He peered into the crevice and said that the book was in the way, he couldn't see anything. I told him I'd left it there since he could shove it out with his long metal stick better than I could with my fatter-than-two-inch-wide arm. So he shoved it through and to the ground and peered again. He was confused and said the gas tank door seemed to be closed. What? I looked in and the gas tank door was now closed. The act of pushing the book through had closed the gas tank door, which had been my whole plan. Chris tugged on the sliding door, the safety feature was no longer locking it, so it closed with ease.

Thus proving my point that I Don't Need Help and that I Can Figure Everything Out, Thankyouverymuch.

[Husband's note: didn't I suggest the book idea on our first phone call?]

I was so grumpy, so I asked Chris if he could stay with the children for five minutes in the van so I could dash into that second store and get that one thing I came for. I ran inside and they don't even carry that one thing. So I came back out to find that John was asking if he could drive home in Daddy's car. I said, well, if I had only one child with me, then would it be okay if I drove to a fabric store to get that one item, which it would definitely carry? Chris said sure and drove John home.

I drove to the fabric store, hauled Mary inside, and discovered that the interfacing I was going to buy to make a duplicate of my pattern was actually so expensive (the cheapest being $2/ 20"-yard) that I could more easily buy a whole new pattern if I wanted one in the future. So I left the store without even buying the interfacing which had been my whole point for visiting the other store where Mary had to go potty, which is why we went back to the van where John pushed the button and got us stuck there, even though ultimately I Did Not Need Any Help!

Yeah, so, you can imagine my mood driving home.

I just thank God these are the little things in life. Today alone I have friends in Russia adopting a baby after a journey of much sorrow, another friend (mother of 11) in a custody battle after a horrific abandonment-divorce, another friend (mother of three) stuck in a complicated real estate situation, another friend (mother of six) battling bad cancer, my own mother bedridden with multiple sclerosis, and many other family members and friends carrying heavy crosses today, private and not private, too many to list here.

I am almost done throwing my pity party now. Thanks for coming.