Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The night the babies went to work...

I have so many things to update on: the babies are 16 months today!! Yay (post forthcoming). I still need to post more pictures of our trip but all of that can wait because I need to share the ridiculousness that was my evening.

So, Marcus found a job. It's not his dream job by any means and it's only part time but it's a job none the less and frankly in this economy we aren't being overly choosy. So we had a huge problem I work 9-4 or 5 during the week plus sundays and several evenings each week. Marcus was scheduled to work 8-5 which left a problem of what to do with the babies. So marcus switched his shift to 4-11 which worked great... except that I had to work this evening from about 5-8:30.

Since Marcus literally just found this job we haven't had time to deal with childcare so my sister has just been watching them, except that she had to work this evening as well. So the best solution I could come up with was to just take them with me. While not ideal I'm lucky to have some flexibility in dragging them along (plus my supervisor was a single mom of two for many years so she fully supports and understands my need to bring the kids along).

So I arrive early to set up for the evening and need to haul a billion things inside. So I put the babies in their stroller, strap everything onto the stroller and set off.

First problem: The stroller does not fit through the door of this building that was built a million years ago. Okay, fine I have to open the other side which is never ever opened and we get in and I manage to shut the door and turn off the alarm.

Second problem: It's a super old building with millions of stairs (ok not millions but a lot). We were going to be in the basement of the building and I needed to once again transport a ton of things down the stairs, and there's no elevator and I couldn't even use the stroller past the entry way because of all the stairs. So the best solution I could think of was to shut the babies into a secure common room and then run as fast as possible as I transporting things.

Which worked okay except Emerson was pretty sure that I had abandoned her and was never returning so she was screaming (which was actually kind of reassuring because I figured if I could still here her she was fine).

So that worked. Then we had to leave to go and pick up six pizzas for the evening. So back into the stroller back through the too small door. Which is where we encountered problem number 3.

I could not for the life of me get the side of the door that's never used closed again. I spent around 20 minutes fighting with it, and finally after getting up on top of a chair I figured it out and got it closed. Except to do this I had to bring the babies back inside so instead of using the stroller for transportation I had to take them out, fold it up and get us all to the car.

Both babies thought walking to the car was super fun and they both took off down the ramp straight towards the street. I abandoned my stroller and attempted to walk/carry/shuffle both babies to the car. Three guys seemed pretty amused by my efforts (but of course no offers for help). So we're back in the car off to get pizza.

Problem four: 2 babies + 6 large pizzas = impossible. Seriously do the math it just doesn't add up. Luckily the guy at the pizza place saw my struggle to get both babies into the store and he offered to carry the pizza out to the car for me, but I was on my own back at work. Which once again involved a stupid door (I gave up on the stroller this time).

So again my best solution was to carry both babies in and then run back to the car for the pizza (which again resulted in Emerson feeling abandoned and freaking out).

By this point I was exhausted and wanted to go home and my evening hadn't even started.

Luckily, both babies were perfect during our meeting. Emerson sat in the chair with me and Eli stood right in front of me and I fed them bits of pizza as I talked. Eli eventually mingled around and Emmy just sat right next to me. So we survived but babies, stairs, transporting goods, and pizzas are a very very bad combination.

Seriously, it was awful I wish I could more fully illustrate and explain the chaos that was my evening.

1 comment:

Jessica White said...

Ai-yi-yi! It's funny, but at the same time so completely frustrating to feel like you're losing it and everything else.

At least it all turned out ok.