One Crazy Day

I drove to Tallahassee on Tuesday for my first appointment with the psychiatrist. That’s the kind of doctor you have to start seeing when you are the mother of 3 preschoolers and you live on an island in the middle of nowhere!!

So, anyway, I drove the 2 hours to Tallahassee, and I actually had a good day being by myself. I was able to find someone to stay with the kids. During my drive, I ran over a board and a nail stuck all the way through my back tire causing me to have a flat when I awoke the next morning! Little did I know that would be only the beginning of a very long day!

So, Wednesday morning I noticed that Chase, 19 months, had a rash all over his body. I was certain it was somehow related to the 104 degree fever he had over the weekend. So, I made an appointment with the doctor that afternoon! I packed lunches and got everyone dressed. We left the house around noon. We wanted to go to the playground for a little while before the appointment. Just before we left, I noticed that Mary Frances had a fever as well. At least we were already going to the doctor, right!?!

I load up the kids along with the flat tire. Ray C. had already put the spare on. So, we track on to Crawfordville, usually an hour and 15 minute drive. However, it was about 15 minutes longer for us that day since we had to go 50 on the spare! It was a beautiful day at the beach, but it soon started raining and ruined our plans of a nice picnic and time at the playground. Instead, we ate our lunch in the car and went to the library in Crawfordville. We were only able to stay about 20 minutes because everyone went in a different direction and they were much too loud for the librarians! So, we got our videos and books and loaded up again – in all 3 car seats!!

We arrived at the doctor’s office just in time. I won’t go into the details of how difficult it was to handle all 3 kids in the small office, fill out the 4 pages of paperwork, and pay attention to the doctor! The diagnosis – Strep throat for Mary Frances and maybe for Chase. We’ll wait to treat him when we get the throat culture back next week!

So, we go to Wal-mart to get the oil changed and a new tire! I did not want to get the kids out of the car. I knew it was not going to be fun in Wal-mart, but I had no choice. This is the closest Wal-mart to our little slice of “paradise” – somebody please tell me this is not paradise!!! It has to get better that this!!! So, anyway, we wait 2 CRAZY hours for the car! I told the girl at the counter I didn’t care what kind of tires she put on the car. She could have put $500 tires on the car for all I cared at the time. They told me I needed 4 new tires! I said WHATEVER!! I had kids climbing all over me and out of the cart! “I’m hungry. I’m thirsty…”

So, we go buy some snacks and drinks, play with the toys, read some books, etc. Mary Frances fever spikes. So, we get some medicine for her and she falls asleep in the cart…Finally, I take the kids to the bathroom and we go to get the car. As I am paying for the tires, Thomas jumps up and says he has to go to the potty now! So, I tell the guy at the counter I have to go now. I will be right back. At this point, I am so stressed out I can’t do anything lese but laugh at what people must think of the 4 of us. We are running through Wal-mart. I’m pushing Chase in the cart, Mary Frances is running in front of me, and Thomas is leading us holding his rear-end and his front trying to “hold it” in. So we get to the bathroom on the other side of the store, Thomas pulls his pants down, and says, “Oh no! I pooped in my pants!” Believe it or not, I was okay at this point. The laughing was good for me and prepared me to do what I needed to do with a good attitude. I told Thomas it was okay. Everyone has accidents. So, I cleaned him up, pulled out a trash bag, rinsed out his underwear and threw his dirty clothes in. I pulled out his clean clothes, and he was so excited when I started to help him put on his clean underwear. He said, “Oh boy, clean underwear. I’m so excited.” I said, “Thomas, did you think I would make you wear the dirty ones?”, and he said, “yes!” My husband says that was my hero moment for the day! How easy it is to be a hero for a four year old!

So, we cleaned him up and go back to the counter where the guy who was checking me out meets me and says I forgot my key. Apparently he did not understand that I was coming back but that “I need to potty!” means RUN! So, we got in the car and drove back to the island going 60 miles an hour on our new tires! We got back right at 8. The kids were all asleep and Ray C. came home right when I did. We put the kids in the bed and I got my pj’s on! It would have been so nice if the day ended there and we had recuperated the next day, but we weren’t finished yet!

I went in the bedrooms to check on the kids at about 9:00 and Mary Frances’ fever had spiked again! It was 105!! So, I woke her up with much difficulty, and got her into a cool bath. She was really excited about that, as you can imagine! I tried the doctor’s pager twice and never got a call back! Apparently it wasn’t working that day! I called our little hospital, but they can’t give medical information over the phone! We were on our own. Eventually the medicine kicked in and the water helped her to get down to 102. We put here in the pack ‘n play in our room. When I checked on Thomas, he had a fever, too. His was 102.5. I went to bed after giving him his medicine and set my alarm for midnight to give Mary Frances some medicine. Thomas woke up before my alarm went off, and when he went in the bathroom, he woke up Chase who began screaming. I put Chase in the bed with Ray C. to calm him down, and went back to check on Thomas who had just thrown up on the floor!!! YIKES!!

So, Thomas slept on the floor in our room in his sleeping bag. He wore up to go to the bathroom again at 3:30 just before my alarm went off again to give Mary Frances some medicine.

The next morning, we drug ourselves out of bed, and called the doctor. We drove all the way back to Crawfordville for Thomas to see the doctor. I had the doctor check me too since I had woken up with a sore throat. So, we all have STREP throat and we went ahead and got Chase the medicine too! We waited at CVS for an hour and 15 minutes for our medicine. Then we drove home once again!

I woke up the next day feeling awful. I never got a fever, but I got the worst of the throat pain!

In all this, I can still say GOD IS GOOD all the time! I know he is doing something in me. He is pruning me, refining me; however you want to look at it. I know he isn’t making me life difficult, but I believe he is allowing me to have this difficult time to learn something. And so, I will try to have the best attitude I can because I know he loves me more than I do, and he has great plans for me! Of course, I might have a breakdown tomorrow, but he is still good, and he will see me through!!