Disasters at the Doctor's

Two days ago, my sweet Stevie broke his finger.  We were told to follow up with his pediatrician two days later...today.  I tried setting the appointment yesterday, because I had errands to run today and people to meet up with and I just wanted to know what time we'd need to work around....blah, blah.  The Dr office wanted to only schedule "day of" appointments.  I called back today...and waited an hour for a call back from them, saying he needed to be seen by an Orthopedic Dr.  I called that Dr, and they had one opening 20 minutes from that time.  I couldn't make it to that office in 20 minutes if I had my own jet pack, but what are you gonna do?  So, I said I'd do my best.  We took our bathroom trips and loaded up.  I am frantically trying to punch the address to this new office into our gps.  It won't work.  Doesn't recognize the street name.  Ughhh.  I ran back inside to look it up online....to find that the Point in the road had an "e" at the end.  That would've been helpful information.  I can't print from my laptop because one child has disabled something on it...so it refuses to print. I put the new "Pointe" into my gps, and off we go.  Never mind that sometimes it thinks I'm on a completely different road than I actually am and needs to readjust every couple of minutes.  That makes traveling...while in a hurry with little ones...especially fun.  Stressed?  Psshh!

We made it there a little late, mmhmm, and rushed in (as much as a 4 and 2 1/2 year old like to "rush"...swimming in a pool of peanut butter...amen?).  We checked in, and I'm handed the huge stack of paper work since we're new.  The kids were being sooo good.  Like, really good!!  They are good kids in general, but boy, I was noticing.  It went much more smoothly than our Urgent Care visit 2 nights before.  ("Please stop jumping off that!" "We've had enough injuries for one night,"  "Take that out of your mouth," "PLEASE get out of there," "I know that looks cool, but do you know where that's been?")  We got called back quickly (whoa!)...did the whole height, weight, etc. with the nurse, and his name was even Stephen.  The nurse left us to wait for the Doctor.  Oh, this visit is going so well, I was thinking...even if we were a little late, and I was a little stressed.

I set the kids up with some "occupiers" together on the table and tried to complete the three hundred pages of health history and the levels of pain my son's been in.  Ha, I thought it was hard for myself to give a number from 0-10!  Stevie said 3!  Sounded good to him.  While I worked, I noticed one of my children "wiggle and dance."  All moms know what that means.  "Do you need to go potty?"  "No."  The dancing gets worse.  "Do you need to go potty?"  A panicked "yes" comes in response this time...and then "Oh no, I'm wet!" and I scoop child up and run to the hall.  Where is child number 2?  Still happily sitting on the exam table.  Scoop that child up, one under each arm....more than 70 lbs of children here!  We tried to run (umm, ha), but I quickly realized I didn't know where to go.  Newbies.  The nurse saw us stumbling around in the hallway, and led the way.  We get in, and I'm relieved that in fact we made it in time as I helped my child use the bathroom.  We made it!  (Cheers in my head)

But, I thought too soon...and that child also was relieved. The flood gates opened before we were quite ready (what did you drink this morning?), which resulted in my entire right pant leg from mid-thigh down becoming saturated, a little on child's pants (go figure), and the pacific ocean covering the floor of the entire handicap stall.  As I try to calm wet child down...and get cleaned up, my other child is pointing out the big mess, and saying, "Mommy, you got all wet?"  I had one in tears over wet pants and one marveling over the ginormous puddle...just itching for a boat and a swim.  I'm trying to think how I can quickly clean this up before A.) the Dr. comes to our room  B.) the dry child becomes wet child  C.) the wet child has an even bigger melt down  D.) the pacific ocean consumes neighboring dry lands  E.) anyone else comes in and stumbles upon our creation!  Talk about pressure!  I did my best cleaning up and clothing the child who was wet, and I did my best with the pacific ocean (sorry about the trash can, but hey, that's better than the floor! and THANK YOU for having paper towels...and not just a dryer), and my happy, enamored child gave me a break and stayed clear.  (Say, what?)  It was time to clean myself up.  What do I do with urine soaked pants?  Seriously, this was not just a dab....this was water war soaked.  I got out the paper towels, soap, and water, and did a little scrubbing...and then I laughed....and laughed...and wished there was a dryer after all.  All I could think of was the scene in Army Wives when Roxy is trying to get the wine out of her dress in the bathroom, and she's scrubbing at the sink saying to all those around, "No need for tears, ladies.  Got it at the Goodwill."  (You have to know the show....and the fact that almost all my clothes are thrift store or garage sale.)  No one walked in on us....phew!  But, I'm sure they were wondering what in the world we were doing in the bathroom so long.

We tried to "quickly" make it back to our room, smiling at everyone in the hall as we passed (me and child who watched, child who participated was not so happy).  What a sight we must've been.  Frazzled and soaked and no doubt stringing along a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of each of our shoes.  We can laugh or cry...and I decided to laugh, but poor child was not dealing as well as Mommy with wet pants.  I had a second pair in the van...but how does one tow both kids out to the parking lot of a big office, get changed, and make it back in time for the doctor??  And...we were already late.  For real, the ONE time I don't bring the whole backpacking gear with us, is the one time we need it.  So, the Dr. entered, and we explained, and she said, "We have shorts!  Would you like a pair?"  The child did.  I politely declined for myself.  The shorts said "Peds" on them, but they looked like XXL men's boxer shorts....paper boxers, haha... disposable boxers.  Child was happy though, and I was happy.  And very wet....and a bit smelly.  We made it through the visit, and Stevie was a champ for all the prodding on his finger.  Then we proudly made our way out the doors, parade style as always with young children, and through the waiting room with soggy clothes and one adorable little one in some super large, breezy shorts.  The child liked them so much, that instead of doing a quick change, they requested to wear them home with a blanket on their lap.  No sticker or toy this visit, but one of them got a pretty cool pair of paper balloon shorts!  

It's a bummer that office won't have the pleasure of us visiting again any time soon.