a tetanus shot, a desperate prayer and pizza for dinner

Do you ever have one of those days when every time you're moving forward, something happens to send you back an hour or two? That was Friday February 11th for us. My brother's birthday. It started with a 5:00 am workout for me. I was proud! Really, that's huge for me to roll out of bed that early. Turns out I think it was a bad omen.

We had a play-date at 9:30. The fruit tray was missing something. What goes with fruit I thought as I stood staring into my refrigerator with only a few minutes to spare. Cheese! Perfect. I grab a few blocks and a sharp knife. My cutting boards are child proofed in a cabinet with the most annoying child proof lock on the market so I've been using them less and less. I wasn't thinking (although I'd been up since 5 am) and decided to hold the cheese in my hand like you would when paring an apple. Really, a stupid idea. Problem was, I grabbed a 5" utility knife, not a paring knife. I was cut on the first slice. I did not add cheese to the play date fruit tray.  Luckily, the cut wasn't that deep, but then I noticed the knife was a tad bit rusty. Trying not to overanalyze but kinda curious about the line of when you need a tetnus shot and when you don't, I call my mother. She tells me to call my husband. He thinks there probably isn't anything to worry about. Ever so late to our play-date, we enter, me, with a huge band-aid on my thumb. I tell my girlfriends and they suggest calling the triage nurse at the ER. I never knew I could do that.

Post playdate I call.

Me: "Ok, so I cut my thumb on a kitchen knife that was clean but a tad rusty in spots. The cut itself doesn't need stitches or anything, but I don't remember when you are to get a tetanus shot."

Nurse: "What's your date of birth?" (Ok, really, does it matter what year I was born? Are people born before 1980 automatically immune to tetanus?)

Me: I comply

Nurse: "Your name?"

Me: again, I answer (seriously, just answer my question. )

Nurse: "When was your last tetanus shot?"

Me: "I don't remember,  (thus the point of this conversation) either high school or college but either way, was 10 years ago. I think."

Nurse: "Well then you should probably get one."

Me: "Really? I mean, the knife wasn't dirty, isn't it the bacteria that's the problem and not the rust? It's probably fine, right?"

Nurse: "Well I wouldn't mess around with it. Call your primary doctor and if they don't have it , go to a Prompt Care."

Ugh! A bad day to leave shopping to the last minute. We were entertaining for my brother's birthday and now only did I need to get the ingredients for enchiladas but pick up a birthday gift too.  And now, I've got to try and fit in a shot, with my two girls in tow.  Did I mention clean my house? On a side note, I've noticed, the older I get, the less I care about having a perfect house when entertaining.

In spite of having to hold for darn near 15 minutes  just to talk to a nurse at the doctors office, I finally get through and get an appointment for 1:15. It's now 11:30 and my youngest has fallen asleep in the backseat.  I run my van through the golden arches for like the 5th time ever and get Audrey a happy meal and my brother a gift certificate. She eats her cheeseburger in her car seat while Allie naps.  In the store, my day continued to challenge me. Today was the day I nearly deconstructed the store with the cart that has the little car on the front. I swear I hit something on every aisle and nearly knocked down a display of hot wheels cars in the tampon aisle. 

In the exam room at the doctors office my quiet and reserved Audrey informs the doctor there will be no shots today. She has been overly vocal lately (for her). Multiple times she sternly says, "no shots today. I said no shots today." The doctor gets a kick out of her and reassures her, she won't be getting a shot. She then looks me in the eye and says, "It's not gonna hurt. It will be okay." (so motherly she is) The nurse enters with the DTap  vaccine. I don't want that I tell her. I just want the tetanus shot. She leaves. And then Audrey says......

"Mommy I have to go to the bathroom." (huge deep breath and exhale) I reply, "Audrey can you wait just a second? The nurse will be coming back soon and then we'll go home." Whining now she insists, "No, Mommy, I need to go poop." Knowing that I'm gonna have to take her, but not giving up I ask again, "Audrey are you sure you can't hold it?" She then replies, but not to me, "Dear God, help me, I have to poop!"

My heart sings when my daughter says her own prayers, but today, I laughed.

We survive the bathroom (barely) and the shot. At home now I begin to cook the chicken for the enchiladas. Audrey decides to take a nap. I see, from the kitchen that Allie has climbed onto the box (containing my Valentine's present) that the UPS guy brought earlier.  Before I can get down the hall she loses her balance falls off backwards knocking her head hard on the tile. It doesn't knock her out but she cries hard. I call the doctor, just to ask the nurse again what I should watch for in her behavior if she had hit too hard. She instead tells me to come in. (heavy sigh). Of course she was fine, not even a bump.  Why did the nurse tell us to come in!?  Because it was Friday. Better to get it checked out before the weekend. Mercy. I make it home an hour before people are to arrive.

 We ordered pizza.

 Days like this tend to stress me a bit. Planning ahead would have eliminated the fast food lunch my daughter got, the lame present my brother received and would have lessened the chaos  when I needed to make two trips to the doctor in one day. Life hasn't allowed me to plan ahead as much as I'd like lately and I don't always get to follow my cleaning "schedule" I made when we first got married or the meal plan I created. The hardest thing for me as a parent is learning to accept that I can't control the majority of my day and I can't do what I'd like to do when I'd like to do it. Accidents happen, unnecessary messes are made and boo boos create chaos. It's all part of the job.