3 Hours of "Fun"

Yesterday between the hours of 10:30 and 1:30 was, um, "fun". For the last week the boys have had nasty colds. Last Friday night in fact I ended up taking Tyler to our doctor's walk in clinic because he had runny nose, bad cough and had just spiked a fever of 102.5. Turned out he had an ear infection in one of his ears. Whew! Dodged the H1N1 bullet there! (They've only had dose one of that shot, so aren't fully protected yet.)

Fast forward to Wednesday and Jackson and Chase are still miserable, aren't sleeping well because of the coughing at night and now are increasingly irritable. It was then that I decided they might have ear infections too (my kids don't often run fevers when they have one, so sometimes it's hard to tell). So I called the doctor's office and set an appointment for the next morning (and was also able to move Tyler's weight check and ear infection follow up appointment to that day to save myself an extra trip).

Usually Nick is able to meet me for these appointments, even the last minute ones, but yesterday he had meetings all day and just couldn't pull himself away. We got to the office on time, the boys were SO well behaved. No one protested getting on the scale (sometimes they do), they climbed in and out of the Choo Choo when I asked them too, they didn't turn the computer off in the exam room (yep, they've done that before) and then they didn't protest when I told them they couldn't have their lollipops until we got to the car. They all calmly walked from the Choo Choo into the lobby bathroom, all used the potty AND didn't go crazy touching everything in the bathroom.

Oh and before I continue - the health part? Tyler's ear infection was not better, in fact he now had one in both ears, so he's on a different antibiotic now. Chase had ear infections in both ears as well and Jackson had one in only one ear. The really excellent news of the day though? Tyler is gaining weight again! WOO! He gained a pound and a half in the last 6 weeks and is now up to the 25th percentile instead of hovering between the 10th and 15th. The doctor is very pleased with his progress.

Ok, so after such a successful solo trip to the doctor I marched out of that place with my head high. I loaded the boys into the car, gave them all their lollipops and went to the back of the car to open the hatch so I could put the Choo Choo in. Here's where things went south.

The hatch refused to open! All the jiggling, locking and unlocking and kicking in the world would not open the hatch. I finally had to release two very sticky  boys from their car seats and have them sit in the front (which resulted in very sticky controls, doors and steering wheel) while I removed two car seats, folded down half of the back seat and shoved the Choo Choo into the back that way. Awesome. Then I put the car seats back, wrangled my sticky boys back into their seats (during which they added stickiness to my leather coat) and headed for Target.

By the time we reached Target (to get their prescriptions) it was 12:15. 45 minutes past lunch and now 15 minutes past when they usually go down for a nap. After dropping off stuff at the pharmacy I wheeled our very full cart (of kids, not food) to the "cafe" and ordered some not-so-great chicken tenders to share.

Finally, 3 hours, a broken Jeep and $100 later (yep, that's how much antibiotic for 5 days for 3 kids runs ya) we were home and finally going down for nap time.

I sat at the table and down a Diet Coke and life was good again.

So sorry for the lack of pictures lately. I think my camera is dying a slow death. Don't worry though - I'm working on a remedy! 

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