That One Time I Bawled in the ENT Office

I think the topic of Terrible Twos will come up fairly frequently for the next little while, because I tell you what, I am up to my eyeballs in it.  This is one tale of life with a Terrible Two (whom I love to no end).

It's the Tuesday after Jude's tubes surgery.  Over the weekend we found a little dried blood in his ear, and when we called our ENT he told us we MUST come in on Monday or Tuesday.  We were able to get an appointment for Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I meet my friend Brittany and her 3 kids at the park.  Brittany was going to have a babysitter meet her at the park, and then leave from there to go do hair and make up for a Nikki Minaj music video in LA.  The only problem was there was going to be a 20 minute gap where she needed to be on the road, and the babysitter would just be leaving high school.  This was close to when I needed to leave for the doctor's office, but Britt was in a bind so I offered to watch her kids until the babysitter came.  I should mention there had been an attempted kidnapping at this park 2 days prior, and people were still a little on edge being there, myself included.  So then I had a 5 year old, two 2 year olds, and 2 infants (including my kids).  The toddlers kept trying to escape in 2 directions, the babies were crying, and the babysitter was late. And this meant I was also late in leaving for the doc that I did not want to reschedule because I was really worried about Jude's ear.  So my little pulse was going wild.

Finally the babysitter comes, and I load the babies up and jet.  We're late to the doctor, but they haven't bumped us, and we take a seat with Graham in the Bjorn and Jude with some books next to me.  But Jude has been over the waiting room experience for a while, and understandably so.  In one month we had been in 8 waiting rooms, whether it was for me, Graham, or Jude (mostly for Jude, though).  This is the child who doesn't like to wait or be quiet or restrained for any reason for any amount of time.  He's getting antsier and louder by the minute.  I realize I haven't had a chance to eat since breakfast, and am really wishing I'd thrown a granola bar into my purse.  We hang out in the waiting room for AN HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES.  I am about to start standing on my head to keep him quiet and entertained.  I even go up to the front desk with Graham in front and Jude on my hip and say, "I'm sorry, I know everyone here is waiting too, but do you know about how much longer it's going to be?"

Finally they take us back, but now we're just waiting in a smaller room with cabinets and drawers filled with swabs, little instrument attachments, cleaning products, and there's a very special and expensive looking chair with a computer attached and little buttons to move it all around.  So now Jude has vehicles to increase his madness and naughtiness.  He gives me the ALL BETS ARE OFF, MOM! look.  I redirect, put him in Time Out in the corner, redirect some more, try and get him to marvel at Graham, sing songs, recite books I have memorized, etc. etc. etc. to no avail so finally,

I sit down on the stool and start crying.  Like really crying.

And actually, this startles Jude and his face goes from "I'm going to be naughty because I CAN!" to "Oh shoot, what have I done??"

And then a minute later, the ENT finally comes in.  The tubes look fantastic, just a small amount of flukey blood, and he says that since we came in today and everything looks wonderful, we don't have to come in again in 2 weeks as he'd told us the day of the surgery.

Phew.

And we beeline outta there, Jude goes down for a nap, and I snuggle with Graham while stuffing my face with many, many bomb chocolate chip cookies.

The End.