I drove cautiously, but with purpose, eager to get back home. The background music for my drive was a mixture of a screeching Sponge Bob DVD and a screaming newborn baby. My left eye ticked, my teeth were clamped together harshly, and I spoke urgently through them to no one in particular.
“Remind me to never ever, ever leave the house ever again.” I spoke through clinched teeth
And it was like God whispered back, “you shoulda stayed home today.”
It was at that moment I noticed that my pants were wet, and since my baby’s bottom had recently been resting there, I was pretty certain of what the puddle could be.
My intentions had been good. I knew my children were experiencing cabin fever, and I simply wanted to get them out of the house. I suppose my timing could have been better, though, considering it was the Saturday before Christmas.
So there I was, three hours after I had intended on leaving my home, pulling into a crowded shopping center. I waited my turn through a maze of crazed Holiday drivers as Sponge Bob sang about Santa, and said a silent thank you that at least the baby was asleep. My newborn had been fighting a nap for the past few hours, and I had almost called the whole outing off. Almost.
Upon entering the busy, crowded department store I remembered that no shopping cart would be available on which to perch my baby carrier, so I carted it on one arm, my purse and bulging diaper bag on the other, and politely pushed my way through the crowd with a three year old holding one hand, and a five year old the other. Well, eventually holding hands. Initially they had run off into the aisle touching displays of shiny jewelry and fuzzy socks as if they were the Holy Grail.
“Don’t touch.”
“Stay with me!”
“Put that down!”
After I managed to find a pair of jeans for my tweenager that weren’t super skinny in nature or riddled with holes, I finally escaped the store unscathed, and managed not to lose a single one of my offspring.
My stomach growled, the baby grunted, and my kindergartener asked for chicken strips. I was reminded then that we had only had Christmas cookies for breakfast (don’t judge me), and lunch was well overdue. So we traveled on to our next destination, one with an indoor playground. Because I’m an idiot.
I was just joyful the baby still slept, and I dreamed for a moment that I might be able to eat without an infant in my arms.
I suppose my daydreams took my mind off the time, or perhaps I stayed busy mopping up spilt milk, for I didn’t seem to notice that our food never came. Indeed I was distracted by the clean up of an entire bottle of chocolate milk that my toddler had poured out, and I was still reeling that it hadn’t woken the baby. Even though it had been poured out directly on her. While she was wearing her new, white coat.
Maybe my mind wasn’t working properly due to lack of sleep, or perhaps my mind had melted. It was, after all, 180 degrees in the fast food joint the children had chosen. And as I pulled on my baggy pants to keep from mooning strangers while I struggled to clean up a chocolate puddle with cheap napkins, I wiped the sweat from my brow and listened to my child ask, “where’s our food?”
Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes and they had forgotten us, or so seemed their confused stares when I brought my ticket to the counter.
“You mean y’all ain’t got your food yet?” the man with the assistant manager name tag questioned, and in the background I heard my infant start to squeal.
It didn’t matter that my food was late, or even that I hardly managed to gulp down a few bites. All that I managed to notice was my face melting off as I sat in the sauna that was the playground hotbox, trying to discreetly breastfeed a chocolate milk soaked baby. At least she didn’t need the coat.
And as she let out a loud, man-sized expelling of gas, followed by the wet sound of a dirty diaper, I knew why some new moms never left the house. At that moment that actually sounded wonderful.
As I pulled into my driveway I realized my house had never looked so lovely, and I wondered if I would ever leave it’s comforting arms again. After all, some days you should just stay home, and I figured I could get along with that idea just fine.