fuel level low. miles remaining ---

don’t they look confused? with parents like us, it’s no wonder….

the car

Loading myself and two kids in the car to go somewhere should be considered an aerobic exercise. I haven’t figured out how to do it in less that four trips in & out of the house. 1.Take purse, diaper bag, drink,  and coat to car and crank it so that it’s not 20 degrees when kids get in 2.Take Zane to car 3.Take Hollin to car 4.Go back to get the things that I (inevitably) forgot plus the items on Zane’s demand list (ie, juice, granola bar, Lemons (the bad guy characters from Cars2, not the fruit), cowboy hat, gloves, etc.). So trips don’t happen unless they’ve been planned ahead of time. No spur of the moment car rides happening around here.

So I started planning in the morning for the CPR re-certification class that started at 5:30pm on the other side of town. The planning included getting Zane down for a nap on time so that he was awake and fully functioning by the time we needed to leave at 4:30. Matt wasn’t going to make it home before I left, so we planned to meet at his clinic to do a switch-a-roo with the kids. Of course this would be the day that Z’s nap ran late.

the parking lot

I told Matt that I was gonna be pushing it to be there on time because I had to wake Z up and I needed to stop for gas. “Can you make it here? We’ll just switch cars so that we don’t have to get the kids out and then I’ll take your car to get gas.” Sounds like a great plan.

Right after we switch cars, Matt stops in the parking lot right in front of me. I’m thinking, ‘c’mon move! i’m in a hurry!’ And then he calls me. My car is OUT of gas. Dead. In the parking lot. So Matt rushes to the gas station in his truck to get gas for my car.

As I’m sitting in the parking lot with the kids, about 100 yards from the building, Zane says, “That where daddy works? That where he sees sick people?……They got a baffroom in there?” Uh oh. It’s times like these that I miss diapers. I can’t drive up closer to the building. I really don’t want to walk up there…for three reasons: it’s cold, I don’t want to carry Hollin’s carseat that far, Zane is wearing pajamas and house shoes. Don’t ask.

So I did what any good Arkansan would do. Let him pee in the parking lot.

the wallet

Matt’s back with the gas. I’m headed to my class and I might make it on time.

My phone rings. It’s Matt. This can’t be good. Surely he didn’t run out of gas on the way to the station….

“Hello?”

“Do you see my wallet in the seat?”

Crap. So now I have to find him at some random gas station in Madison and drop off his wallet so that he can get gas before I go to my class. Then I sat through a red light twice trying to turn left…finally just ran the light and made it to the class about 15 minutes late. I had to walk to the front of the class to get a seat. It’s just as humiliating now as it was in college.

I am now re-certified in CPR. I am not sure it was worth it.