When I’m having a crazy horrid day I think to myself “this will make a good post for my blog and probably will make someone have a much better day after reading this because almost anyone is having a better day than me right now” and that thought keeps me going. Sadly enough.
This is what has happened in the last 4 hours:
Back story: So, I got up late today. Ben and I were up late cleaning and organizing- tasks that never seem to diminish- and got to bed a little before 2 am. Summit woke up screaming at 4 am and since that is unusual, we both got up and comforted him for awhile. He finally went back to sleep and the alarm that was suppose to be set was forgotten. The day was thus started late.
I couldn’t wake up, but I was comforted by the fact that after I dropped off Summit at therapy I could come home and take a nap. I ran around trying to get ready, my hair was a frizz ball and I threw on sweats. I was just going to drop him off, right? Summit could sense my stress and decided to eat realllly slow at breakfast. I decided to let him eat and with my mom watching him, I went to put everything in the car that he would need, including a snack since he wasn’t eating a good breakfast. I realized that Ben had taken the wrong car and left me with the one with an empty tank. Grrrrr. I also noticed my brother had parked behind me. I came back in and told my mom and she went and got his keys and tried to move his car because I was starting to run late. It began to rain. I brought Summit down so I could leave as soon as she moved the car and realized that Ben had also not put the car seat back in MY car after it had been in his all day yesterday. Double grrrrr! So I called him, completely unsure of what to do. I had to get Summit to therapy, his OT had been out of town all last week and that is the area he is the most behind in. I decided to fudge a little bit on the law and just strap him in a seat belt because we are literally a block from the center and then figure out a car seat to pick him up in.
After deciding that, I realized my mom still hadn’t moved the 4-runner. Apparently she couldn’t get the parking brake off. I mean, this isn’t rocket science I thought, so after she tried for a few minutes I decided to give it a try. I even called Ben to ask him how to get the stupid parking brake off a toyota 4-runner and I did everything he said to no avail. I had to go back up the stairs into my brothers room and asked his hairy back how to get his stupid car out of park. He informed me in a barely intelligible voice that the parking brake light stayed on all the time. Well, it wasn’t moving when I had it in reverse, even with coaxing from the gas pedal, I told him and he just said well, whatever, it should work. Great. So, I went back down to the car, in the rain, and it still wasn’t going backwards. My mom sat in the car with Summit as I growled at the 4-runner and finally in a sadly characteristic display of my lack of patience, I hit the accelerator as hard as I could, the tires were spinning, the smell of burning rubber filled the air and…. I flew backwards, narrowly missing the embankment. I calmly re-parked his stupid vehicle and my mom agreed to sit in the back seat with Summit while we ran to the center to take him.
After I dropped him off I realized I was really really out of gas so had to stop. I then had to make a decision to go get another car seat or drive up to Bentonville to get mine back. We had talked recently about getting a second car seat for Ben’s car, and Ben had gone as far as to pick out the one he wanted at Wal-Mart the other day. When I called him again, he suggested just to go pick that one up. That was fine with me because I didn’t really want to drive all the way to Bentonville and I knew which one he wanted so I wouldn’t have to pick it out. I’m very picky about car seats and hate to shop for things without time to think about it first. I like to do on-line research and figure out which one has the best ratings, best color and then observe the general size and look of one before I purchase it. I know. I’m a little bit anal sometimes! So, I went to the Wal-Devil and picked up the car seat Ben wanted and then realized that it was for 30lbs and up. Summit weighs only 22lbs. They have the weight thing on there for a reason and I realized also that he wasn’t tall enough. Poo. I began attempting to shop the other seats but had such a brain block from the lack of sleep and caffeine consumption at this time that I couldn’t think. Ben was in a meeting so he couldn’t look them up. I take car seats very seriously, I mean, without doing any online research I quickly came up with the idea that I had to have a cup holder of some kind and armrests. He was going to be in this next booster seat for awhile so I wanted a decent one. Based on the statistics listed below each seat, I realized that he was basically too small for all of them except the really low budget ones and the ones that were at the top of the line were out of our price range. I gave up at Wal-Mart and headed to Target. I then stood dumbly in front of their car seat display for about 20 minutes before making the agonizing decision to get one that was on sale that I hated, but I rationalized that I liked the color and that this was a SPARE and he’d have his much comfier seat for long trips and daily usage.
As I was checking out, I saw a lady from church and hollered my southern greeting across the aisle even though I wanted to hide my frazzled appearance from everyone. She commented that Summit was getting his big boy seat and I chuckled and told her Ben accidentally took ours to work. She then told me that the Fayetteville Police Department gives car seats away for free at the mall and that is where she had got all 3 of her kids car seats. Well, then. I was literally pressing the OK button on the keypad to purchase my car seat. The lady lowered her voice slightly and said, “don’t buy it!” and I listened.
I fled from Target and drove to the place I hate most in the world. The Mall. I peeked in and slid past the make-up counters at Dillards, afraid they would offer to give me a make-over when they saw how bad I looked. I walked past the swim suits and made a mental note to do more crunches. I finally made it to a long, dark, scary hallway that a sign was pointing me towards the police department office. It was so quiet. I found the door, cautiously opened it, and in my sinus-infected-crackling-barely-understandable voice I stammered out something about free car seats feeling like an idiot the whole time. He said he didn’t have any. I felt so stupid, like basically asking for a handout, and I looked so trashy that I wanted to explain that I normally don’t look so horrible, but instead I cracked out a thank-you and burst into tears in the hallway.
At that point I gave up. I called Ben and told him to meet me at the Wal-Mart off of Pleasant Grove Rd so I wouldn’t have to drive all the way up there. I was also running out of time before I had to pick him up, my 3 hours was declining rapidly. I beat him there by a few minutes and insanely decided to run into this Wal-Mart to see if their selection was any better than the stores in Fayetteville. Instead I found the exact same car seats that the Fayetteville location had, but priced for much more! That first stupid car seat that we had wanted to purchase but Summit was too small for was double the price up here. Ben arrived, I got the car seat, turned on my ipod and cranked my shallow theme song (and this one) up loud and sang the whole way back to Fayetteville. I picked Summit up late from his therapy, but I was still singing and it’s bright and sunny outside now.