Driving for the victory

• Mar. 5, 2006 - My sanity had officially left the building

I have been meaning to blog about this since Monday, but just have never gotten the time.  Since the local schools have vacation this week, a lot of our normal activities are cancelled (Tae Kwon Do, Scouts, and swim lessons).  I was so happy that we were going to be able to stay home more since moving my gang isn't usually a smooth operation.  Monday was going to be one of those stay at home days, till I remembered that DH and I had chiropractor appointments.  These appointments are usually pretty easy.  DH takes lunch and meets me at the doctor's office.  He stays with the kids while I go in and I stay with the kids while he goes in.  Sometimes we go to lunch afterwards if the kids don't have TKD.  Well, that morning things went a little awry.  Little Brother was complaining about an ear ache.  He usually doesn't complain so I knew he had another ear infection.  I called the doctor's office and asked for the appointment closest to my 11:00 chiropractor appointment.  They said they could get him in at 2:40.  See we are about 45 minutes from the doctor's office and I didn't want to cart everybody home then drag them out again. So I decided to take the kids to the mall to pass the time.  I am pretty sure that was the time when what little sanity I had, left.  Lunch went well because DH drove the kids to the mall while I was being adjusted.  When I got to the mall, they were all eating quietly.  Unfortunately, they could only eat just so long.  When we finished lunch, we decided to walk around the mall and look in some of the stores.  Big Brother and Little Brother have birthdays coming up and Grandma wants to take each of them out to pick out gifts.  We went to the Discovery Store and the Disney Store.  These went well until we saw the display in the lobby, for the kids club in the mall, with Dora the Explorer.  Dora is Little Sister's absolute favorite character.  Unfortunately Big Brother doesn't like Dora at all (I think he has had Dora overload).  It only cost $5 per child to join the club and the kids get to get a monthly newsletter and can go to special activities at the mall.  So I decided to sign up Big and Little Sister and Little Brother.  While I was doing all that, Big Brother (who is 11 going on 30) said he was going to go somewhere else in the mall and before I could stop him, he was gone.  I wasn't too worried.  Big Brother is just that...Big.  He stands 5'5" and weighs 130 pounds.  He isn't a follower and is a green belt in TKD.   The mall is a safe place and it was the middle of the day.  Trying to drag the other 3 to catch him would have been a disaster.  I hurried the younger ones through the process then went off to look for Big Brother. I went down a couple of halls and couldn't find him.  I don't go to the mall very often, so I don't know all the stores they have.  I realize now that if I had found a map of the mall, I would have known exactly where he was. Unfortuately it was getting near time to leave for the doctor and Little Brother was tired and cranky (he did have an ear infection).  I finally asked if they paged and they didn't but they would send a security guard to find him.  As I described Big Brother to him, he asked if he liked games.  Big Brother is a huge video game fan.  As soon as I told him that, the man knew where to find Big Brother.  Little Brother was whining while I was trying to give the description because he had to use the bathroom bad.  So I took off for the bathroom.  The bathrooms in the mall are no where near the center of the mall so we had to walk a while to get to one. As we came out of the bathroom, we saw Big Brother with the kind security officer.  I was relieved to see him, but also livid that he had wandered off.   I asked where he was and was told he was at the video game store that had demos.  I told Big Brother that I hoped he liked playing those games because he wouldn't be playing games for the next week.  Big Brother didn't understand why he was in trouble.  I tried to explain it to him, and finally reached the point of exasperation when Big Brother said, "If you had just followed me, you would have known where I was".  I quickly told him that I was the parent and he was the child and that he was to follow me, not the other way around. The rest of the day I had a grumpy Big Brother, a sick Little Brother, and a tired Little Sister.  By the end of the day I was tired and sure that my sanity was long gone.  After having gone through that whole day, I wonder if I ever had sanity to begin with

Post A Comment! :: Send to a Friend!