An hour in the life of a mom

I did a lot of doing today, but not a lot of “oh, this is something to blog about” doing.  By 6:00 I was thinking the day would be unbloggable. I thought too soon.

A quick visit to Wegman’s to pick up medicine at the pharmacy turned my calm day into quite a disaster. It went a little like this:

6:28 pm: Arrive at Wegmans, carrying Little in her bucket baby carrier carseat with Big and Middle trailing behind. Head directly to pharmacy, as prescription for Big was e-mailed in earlier that day

6:34: Pharmacist politely explains that prescriptions sent in from doctors aren’t usually filled until the next day. (What? Wouldn’t you think that if a doctor sends in a prescription, the patient needs it?!) Asks me if I can please wait about 20 minutes so that she can fill it.

6:36: Decided it was too late to make dinner, so walk over to Wegman’s amazing cafe, which has a pizza shop, wings bar, coffee bar, hoagie shop, HUGE salad bar, sushi bar, Chinese buffet, 2 soup areas, Indian Cuisine buffet, burrito bar… its massive. You see where I’m going, right? Its easy obvious I’m going to lose the kids here. (By-the-way, did you know “hoagie” isn’t considered a word using Firefox’s spellcheck?)

6:37-6:41: Wait 4 minutes for the pizza guy to notice us standing at his counter, wanting to order a slice for Middle.

6:42: Big walks around salad bar deciding what he wants. Requests fruit, then walks away to find shrimp. I ask Middle to stand with his pizza and Little while I fill a container with fruit on the other side of the very long salad bar. I can’t see Big. Middle yells that he has to go potty.

6:44: Find Big after yelling through store for him.

6:45: ask Pizza guy to please hold our pizza and fruit while we run to potty.

6:47: Boys race to potty with me limping behind lugging my 14 pound Little and her 20 pound seat. Middle arrives at toilet too late, and there is pee all over the floor, his underwear and his pants. A little pee actually made it into the toilet.

6:48: Help Middle to remove his shoes, socks, jeans and underwear and explain that he’ll have to put the jeans back on, wet.

6:50: I clean up Middle’s accident. While cleaning I inadvertantly open the stall door into Big’s forehead, pushing him back into a wall, so that he is now crying that I hurt him twice (back of head and front of head.)

6:53: Kiss Big’s head, twice

6:54: Wash hands and use complimentary hand sanitizer for everyone

6:55: pick up food at Pizza Counter. Pull Little over to Chinese buffet for shrimp for Big. Big and Middle run ahead. Somewhere.

6:56: Find Middle and Big at drink area, which I can see from Chinese buffet. Begin filling container with popcorn shrimp and Lo Mein, when the entire area freezes and turns as Middle lets out a piercing high-pitched shriek, followed by a “HELP! Somebody help me!!! Please!! Help!!” Adults are turning frantically, wondering where this poor, lost child with wet pants’ Mommy is.

6:56:30: I drop Chinese container on counter, leave Little on the floor in the middle of the Chinese buffet area and run to save Middle. A woman beats me there and removes the refrigerator door that had closed on his arm. Unhurt, Middle continues screaming as he takes his milk from the refrigerator, “My pizza! My pizza is crushed! Its broken!! Ohhhh. Noooo.”

6:58: Gather the broken pizza, milk bottle, Middle, Big (who magically showed up in the commotion and is asking for lemonade–I ignore his request) and make my way back to the other side of the Chinese buffet, where two very-obviously-not-parent-adults are standing over Little. Clearly keeping a distance of about 6 feet, they are trying to figure out how to fill their containers with Chinese buffet food and not come too close to this baby that was left alone on the floor of Wegmans.

6:59: Dump handfuls of shrimp and Lo Mien into container. Grab lemonade for Big. Walk over to the line to pay where, of course, 2 of the 4 check-outs are closed. The lines are at least 6 people long each, and Wegmans Cafe checkout is notoriously slow. Especially when you have your kids with you.

7:01: Big drops his fruit container on the floor. Only 2 fall out. I hold the container while he hunts for a trash can. He comes back with fruit still in his hand telling me “that’s for plastic only. Fruit isn’t plastic.” I send him to find another trash can.

7:03: Attempting to hold all 4 containers of food, the fruit wobbles off the tower and lands, squarely, on Little’s head. This might have taken just a millisecond, but it seemed like 5 minutes of falling. Especially because the man behind me emitted a long, shocked, gasping sound while it was falling.

7:03:10: I turned to make sure the man hadn’t suffered a heart attack.

7:03:20: Turn back to Little and pick up fruit off her head.

7:05: Woman in front of me takes pity and asks her teenage son to please get me some napkins. His response, twice, was “huh?”

7:06: Woman in front of me puts down her food and her son’s and gets napkins.

7:07: Clean up Little. Then put my food on the ground, get a wipe and clean her again.

7:08: Woman in front of me, who is now about to pay, makes a space for me to place my containers. I use a wipe to clean Little again.

7:13: it is finally my turn to pay. Cashier charges me 3 times for the lemonade. He offers to get a manager and void it. I opt to pay for 3 lemonades.

7:17: We walk back towards the pharmacy. Along the way, Middle decides he’s tired, and sits down in the middle of the produce section. Next to the grapes. He sits.

7:18: Middle realizes that no one is taking pity on him, so he gets up and runs to find us.

7:20: Now at the Pharmacy, the pharmacist mentions that my son’s PRESCRIBED MEDICATION FROM A DOCTOR hasn’t been approved by the insurance. She’s tried it twice. However, the insurance company will approve a smaller dosage. Except Wegmans doesn’t carry that size. Forget that the DOCTOR PRESCRIBED THE MEDICATION and we now can’t get it. She offers to call other area pharmacies.

7:22: The boys sit down to eat their dinner at the pharmacy. Big drops the fruit on the floor. There are now about 4 pieces left.

7:24: Walmart doesn’t have the prescription.

7:27: SAMS Club hasn’t heard of it.

7:29: CVS only has the large size, the same one as Wegmans that the doctor prescribed.

7:31: We leave Wegmans with a mixture of popcorn shrimp and lo mien, 1 piece of chopped fruit, 1 smushed and broken pizza, a milk and a lemonade (which is half full). No medicine. We’ll have to come back tomorrow afternoon for the medicine order to be filled.

7:35: Everyone is in the car. Before starting off, I call the Huz, hoping to hear a happy, friendly voice on the other end. I plan to tell him that I’ll need help getting everyone fed, bathed (get the fruit juice out of Little’s hair), and in bed before my webinar tonight. Instead,

7:36 he picks up and tells me he was pulled over for running a stop sign.

Tagged as: Pharmacy, Wegmans Food Markets