JT spent 4 hours in the emergency room last night for a splint and an x-ray on his wrist so this morning I had to get up and find an orthopedist. I found one who then wanted the x-rays, a referral and an appt before 11:30 am. It only took three phone calls to the pediatrician and 4 phone calls to the hospital (after I finally found the number - the one listed in the phone book for the ER had been disconnected with no forwarding number!). Then 3 calls to the ortho and a gazillion calls to every friend in my acquaintance who might be able to watch at least 5 children on short notice. God bless the friend who called me for some entirely unrelated issue and ended up at our house 30 minutes later toting her own 3 children. All the while, of course, those 8 little bodies needed to be fed some breakfast, there was Math and Reading to accomplish just so we could say we did some school today and David followed me around whining and putting his little arms in the air at me.
My friend arrived here shortly after 11:00 which gave me about 20 minutes to race into town, find a parking spot for the big red van (normally a 20 minute procedure by itself), race into the hospital w/both my fastest and pokiest children, take an elevator to the ground floor, track down the films, race back to the van and get 5 miles up the road to the doctor. We didn't do it. We arrived at the doctor's office at 11:43 but they were gracious enough to see us anyway. That made it all worth it. It's amazing how soft I can become when doctors actually turn out to be nice people and their staff are accommodating and efficient. Turned out to be just a bad sprain - more good news as 6 weeks in a cast was a daunting notion for JT considering the amount of energy he stores in his body which needs to be released into some seriously physical activity at least 5 times a day.
We were out of there so quickly we made it to the optometrist in time to replace the frames of Ruthie's glasses which she broke last week falling out of the van in a far-off-thought moment. And since we were on a roll we ambled on up to the orthodontist a half hour early for Philip's appt to get his spacers placed in his mouth in preparation for the BRACES he gets next week. They actually saw us early, too - another doctor office with marks for good behavior. So we had an "o" doctor sort of morning - orthopedist, optometrist, orthodontist...
We made it home shortly after 1:00 and it was the least I could do to watch my friend's 3 boys while she had some alone time at the grocery store. The kids had a great time playing with their friends for that extra time except for Philip who, somewhere in there, forgot to be social enough to disengage from his activity in the basement and say good-bye. The good-byes over, we locked the front door and piled into the van to take JT to his friend's house (1/2 hour away and only about 2 minutes from the orthodontist but of course we couldn't coordinate the two efforts). Had the key in the ignition when Ben asked, "Mom, where is Philip?" Oh yeah, still in the basement being anti-social. This is why we do roll call every time we get in the van - I would have figured it out in another minute or so, honest. We retrieved Philip from the basement and tried again, dropped JT off only to have a car full of sulking children who didn't't get to go to a friend's house. We racked our brains on the way home for friends we could see (um, what about the 3 boys who spent the morning romping around our house with you?!) and decided to stop in our neighbors. I was willing to take 2 of her kids home with me but instead we ended up leaving Ben there for the night to go to a family bonfire. The number of pouting children left in the car was dwindling anyway...
With Daddy gone, I needed a nap and I needed one badly so I resorted to the Mom secret weapon - the DVD player. I turned on Three Musketeers, put David in his bed and lay on the sofa w/the blanket over my head. Of course, this meant nothing to John Michael who persisted in climbing in, on and over me throughout the duration of the movie. Somewhere in there JT got delivered home, I ordered a couple of pizzas and we switched to old Roy Rogers movies (gotta love Netflix!). The children got into bed by 9:50, I took 20 minutes to write this post and now I will retire to bed with my latest Michael O'brien novel (reading in bed is a rare treat for me) and a pint of Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk. And that's one day in the life of our family....
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