A day in the life...

I would love to blog more. I would love to put together Audrey's baby book before the new baby comes. I would love to build a headboard and decorate my bedroom, paint the house, landscape the backyard, etc., etc. However, I have two things called children which make all of this impossible. Here is a play-by-play of Wednesday, and a typical day in my life so that perhaps you can understand.

7 a.m., wake-up. Get kids dressed, fix breakfast, get Aaron off to work. Encourage the kids to eat their food, not throw it on the floor. An hour later, tell Camden for the 23rd time to finish his food. Change poopy diaper. Change Audrey's clothes already to get the breakfast and diaper doo off. Running late for the doctor's appt. and I am still not showered. Jump in the shower real quick. Hear kids fighting and screaming bloody murder while I am in the shower. Try to finish shower in three minutes to break up the fight. Run naked into the other room to pull Camden off of Audrey. Get dressed. Hear Camden yelling, "Danger!" Run out to the other room to pull Audrey off of the top of the computer desk hutch for the 15th time that week. Take the scissors out of her hands that were placed up high on the computer desk so she couldn't get to them. Notice that the computer that she crawled up on has all sorts of error messages showing.

Pack some snacks, get kids in car. Buckle up Audrey. Wrestle with Camden and explain to him for the 1000th time why he must ride in his car seat with his buckles on. Rush off to Audrey's eye dr. appt that is 30 minutes away. Arrive to dr. 5 minutes late at 9:20 and get a crusty look from the receptionist. Try to fill out the paperwork while two kids are running two different directions. Read all the signs in the dr. office about not letting your kids run down the hallway where the exam room is, and also the many signs that say no food or drink of any kind. Read another sign that says to please confine children to the play area which consists of a little table that has grown-up magazines for reading material, the typical bead roller coaster dr. office toy, and a television that is playing the movie "Ratatouille, which is not age appropriate for toddlers (too boring).

Try to entertain the kids in the waiting area. Notice Camden has a strange face on and recognize that as a "needs to go to the bathroom" face. Drag him to the bathroom despite him telling me he doesn't have to go. Force him on the toilet. Notice a surprise in his pants. Try to clean his underwear in the bathroom while Audrey pulls off all the toilet paper, licks the plunger and brushes her hair with the toilet brush. Clean up Camden the best I can. While trying to disinfect Audrey from head-to-toe, notice that Camden thinks it is funny to emulate whatever Audrey does and now he is pulling the last remaining bit of toilet paper off the roll. Clean him up again. Leave the bathroom exasperated. Return to waiting area.

Chase Audrey down the hall to the exam room. Camden thinks this is funny so he runs down that hall too. Get several dirty looks from the staff. Carry each child under each arm back to waiting area. It's now been 30 minutes. Try to catch Audrey as she runs down the hallway again. Catch her and come back to find Camden sticking his head in the drinking fountain to wash his hair. Drag them to the little table that has absolutely nothing for kids. Both kids get on the table and start to jump off. As I pin them down on my lap they both start to scream. Have the 4th contraction of the morning. While having said contraction, watch kids get on the waiting room chairs and chase each other over every chair, screaming and laughing as loudly as they can.

The dr. finally calls us back. Thank the Lord, I mutter. Camden has a meltdown in the exam room when he realizes he doesn't get to sit in the cool chair for the exam (this appt. is for Audrey). All the dr. does is give Audrey some drops to dilate her pupils and sends us back out to the waiting room to wait some more until she is dilated. Time to play in the drinking fountain again. Blatantly ignore the signs as I break out some drinks for the kids. Chase Audrey and Camden down the hallway again. Completely lose my temper and start to drag Camden by the shirt so he will listen. Dr. comes out into the hallway to tell the kids to not run down the hall and to listen to mom.

Decide to go outside so I can yell at my kids. Scold Camden and tell him he doesn't get to play the Wii for two days and that he has to put four toys in the garage now. (We do this when he acts up, and he has to earn them back). Give them some fruit snacks and drinks. They sit very calmly and eat. Why the HE** won't they allow snacks in the bleeping waiting room? That would entertain my kids for a little while at least. It is a pediatrician's office after all, they should understand that!

Return to waiting room. Repeat jumping off chairs, tables, and dunking head in drinking fountain. At 10:45 (1.5 hours after appt. time) finally get called back. Sit with Audrey in the cool chair while doc. performs tests on her. Hear Camden whine and complain the entire time that he wants a toy from the doctor. At the end of the exam, Cam asks the doc. for a toy. The doc. was nice enough to comply and gave him some tongue depressor thing with pictures on it. Walk out of exam room to hear Camden say he doesn't want that toy.

Take file to receptionist to check out while kids are banging on the front door, trying to escape. Be thankful that the door is too heavy for them to open. While walking out to parking lot, Camden decides to let go of my hand and run in front of a car. After a severe scolding, we arrive at the car. He throws a fit because I opened the door, and not him. Buckle in Audrey, curse out loud, throw my keys in exasperation and yell at Camden to get in the car now or else. See all the onlookers staring at me like I should be in jail. Get in the car and start to cry, realizing that in only seven weeks there will be three of them! Realize that there is no possible way that we are going to Costco now, which is just around the corner, because I refuse to take these kids in public anymore. Not to mention, Audrey's eyes are dilated and she won't wear the little sunglasses they gave her so she is screaming because her eyes hurt. Drive home wondering if I should go to a parenting class. Curse at the fact that it is 105 flippin' degrees yet again and I am sweating like a dog. If only it were cooler I could at least take the kids to a park or something.

Get home around noon. Fix lunch. Audrey throws it on the floor. I put her in her bed for a nap without lunch. Camden takes his usual hour to eat. He begs to play the Wii, but I remind him how naughty he was and that he doesn't get to. Watch him have the zillionth meltdown of the day. Search for my phone everywhere to call Aaron so he can talk me down from giving my child away. Where is the flippin' phone? Must've left it at the dr. office. Decide to be a glutton for punishment and not put Camden down for a nap so that he will actually go to bed on time and wake up in time for school the next morning. Let him watch T.V. while I pay some bills online and sign him up for soccer. Really need to use the phone to call the insurance company, set up dr. appt., and a hundred other things. Tear the car apart looking for the phone. Email Aaron to ask him to call me so I can hear it ring. He does, I never hear it. It's lost. He calls the eye doctor, they don't have it there.

Go upstairs to do laundry. Amazingly I finish folding six loads of laundry. Put it all away except for one basket of Audrey's clothes since she is sleeping. (A mistake as the next morning during my shower she threw all of the clothes down the stairs.) Do dishes, let Camden watch way too much t.v. because I don't know what else to do with him and I am too mad at him anyway. Realize that I really did need to go to Costco for something the next day and that I would have to make the trip back. Email Aaron, since I can't find my phone, begging him to meet me there to help with kids. Finally find my phone in the pocket of a pair of shorts that were in my closet that I was initally going to wear, but changed at the last minute.

Leave at about 4:30 to meet Aaron. Eat dinner at Costco. Kids run amuck. I don't care anymore, it is now Aaron's problem. Get the item that we need. Start to stroll around Costco because it's fun. Kids start pushing each other in the cart and fighting. Realize that this will never be a pleasant trip so I give up on the idea of looking around the store. Oh well, it saves me money anyway. Go to the car. Camden begs to go with Aaron in his Jeep. We tell him no because he isn't technically supposed to be riding in the booster seat that is in Aaron's jeep anyway, we just use it to take Cam to school which is just down the street from our house. Listen to another one of Camden's tantrums. Laugh at him when he hurts his hand and foot from kicking and punching the car.

Drive home and arrive there at 6:45. Perfect, we have about 30 minutes to get outside on a walk now that it has cooled down a little bit and before it gets dark. Realize that both kids took their shoes off in the car on the way home and so now I have to put them back on before we can go. Aaron disappears upstairs. Get Audrey's shoes on her. Ask Camden for the 10th time to get his shoes on. Tell him to go the bathroom. He won't go. Finally he gets his shoes on. It's now 7:15 and getting dark. We will have about 10 minutes now. Get out to garage as Cam climbs into the bike trailer attached to my bike. Ugggh, this is not what I wanted. He needs EXERCISE to burn off all of his naughty energy. Aaron goes to buckle Cam in only to notice that Camden is wet. I KNEW the stinker needed to go to the bathroom, but he wouldn't do it! I take Camden inside to change him. Get him changed, make him go to the bathroom, go outside to realize that Aaron has left us. It is now dark. Camden starts to cry because Aaron left us. I tried to explain that Aaron left because Camden took too long getting getting ready. It had been 30 minutes and if he had just put his shoes on and gone potty in the first place we would have been out there 25 minutes earlier. We start to walk to try to find Aaron, all the while Camden is sobbing.

Halfway to the park, Aaron finds us. Audrey is crying because she doesn't want to be in the bike trailer. Camden is crying because he wants to get in. We switch kids. I walk around with Audrey a little in the dark. We get home a little after 7:40. Feed the kids a snack. Take the kids upstairs to take a bath. Get Audrey out of tub and dry her off. Turn around to help Camden drain the tub and pick up bath toys. Turn back around to see a log of poop and a puddle of pee on the floor and poopy footprints headed out the door. Run after Audrey, throw her back in the bathtub, clean up mess, get both kids out, and immediately diaper Audrey this time. Camden sees me give baby powder to Audrey and demands some. I ask him to wait. He doesn't. Now there is a pile of baby powder on the carpet. Yell at Camden for not listening. Aaron comes up to intervene. He gets Audrey to bed. I make Camden vacuum his mess. Brush his teeth, put him to bed. It's 8:40.

Go downstairs, clean up kitchen, toys, etc. Sit down to spend 20 minutes on a spreadsheet for my Young Women's calling. Finally complete it three hours later at midnight. Try to happily encourage Aaron to go on a trip to Thailand with his brother or to Alaska with my Dad while inside I have a panic attack. Quickly check my emails and blog. Chuckle and roll my eyes at my sister's "gentle" prodding for more updates. Blah. Whenever I pull out the computer I am visited by an eager little girl who pounds on the keys, climbs on the desk, closes the computer, pushes the power button, oh and once she completely managed to delete the entire operating system. Lara, maybe some day Joci will do all of this to you! Go to bed exhausted.
For the next little while Facebook will have to do. I see it as the Cliff's Notes version of my life.