Getting Over

Justice Ny loves my "stories" so maybe she can find some humor in my week from hell. Here's what happened.

Sunday evening, I notice these strange little bumps on Little Brother ("B"). Is it a heat rash from the fever he had been fighting the past few nights? Who knows. But I could not explain it. Well, Monday morning, B wakes up and he is covered in red dots all over his body. I'm a bit scared because it looks scary. Hubby says to take him to the Emergency room, but he's acting normal so I say wait. I call the pediatrician instead. Hubby leaves for work and take Oldest to school. I start rushing to try to get Daughter to day care so that I can take B to the doc's office and be there as soon as their doors open at 9 am.

B goes down for his usual nap, around 8:30, and I quickly get dressed, get Daughter dressed, hair decent, etc., and run outside and load Daughter in the car. Let me just say that I never advocate leaving kids in a car, running or not, and I never do it. But typically my car is in my garage and I load my kids one by one in our safe, secure and cool garage. But this time it was in the driveway and it was already warm outside. So I did it even though as I did it I knew it was wrong. I turn the car on so that she can stay nice and cool. Well the car is a loaner car that I have been driving for over a week while the dealership worked on trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my car (some sort of electrical problem). I run back in the house, get "B" from his crib, run back out and the car DOORS ARE LOCKED. YIKES.

Now, remember, it's a loaner car. So there's no calling Hubby for a spare key. Thank God because I could hear it now. I panic even more because although I turned the car on, I remembered I never actually checked to see if the air was on. NOT GOOD. Thankfully, the air was on, but it was on low. I call the dealership, I tell them to get someone there in 10 minutes otherwise I was going to break the window.

Daughter remains calm, and we start to play peek-a-boo while I tried to act like she wasn't locked in the car that was sitting in the sun. Thankfully, she looked comfortable. But my heart was racing. B is looking worse by the minute and was not at all happy about having his nap cut short. Someone arrives 12 minutes later. (We live close, THANK GOD). And I stay far back because I do not want him to see B and run for cover because it really did look bad.

When I finally make it to day care, I have the Director come to the car and grab Daughter for fear of reactions and spreading whatever has taken over his body to others. Director claims it's the measles and states she's only seen it one time in the last 5 years, after of course she makes a face and says "Wow." Nice. So I call Hubby, give him the report and he panics, and says he'll meet me at the doc's office.

Finally, we get to the doc's office. The nurse who checks us in yelps when she sees B. Nice. After waiting almost an hour, we learn B has the measles vaccine rash. And that it would get worse before it got better and that only 5% of kids actually even get the rash from the vaccine. And, we also learn that B had strep throat. My poor baby!!! I was heartbroken for him and also thinking about all the papers I had to grade starting that day. Then I'm mad at myself for thinking about the papers.

Anyhow, I didn't think it was possible for it to get worse but it did. It was worse by the time we got to the doctor and worse by noon. And worse yet the next day. Hubby took the kids to his parent's house to quarantine them from the rash and strep.


So that was Monday through Wednesday. No papers were graded, nothing was done. B was not in a terrible mood but he wasn't happy. I showered him with love.


Thursday, B is well enough to go to school. Rash has faded significantly, strep was being treated, he was not contagious and doc says it's okay for him to return to day care. Now, I'm still in the loaner car, even though I have been getting a call every day for the past 7 days from the dealer telling me that they were still working on finding what was causing the problems in my car and that they were sure it would be resolved "the next day."

This is where J. Ny will start laughing. On day 6, the gas light came on so I put $6.00 of gas in a car that takes about $70 to fill up. Because I was in the loaner car, my cheap butt did not want to put any gas in their car. STUPID. The $6.00 dollars did not actually do much and the light didn't even turn off. DUMB. Nevermind the fact that when I got the car, it was completely full. I thought I would get over. IDIOT. I stay home on day 7 so no gas needed. On day 8, yesterday, I got the call to come pick up my car. The light was still on and I knew I had to put some gas in it but I was rushing from place to place, (as always). Finally, by the afternoon, I pick up Oldest from school and tell him the first thing we're doing is getting gas. I missed my darn turn to get gas and I start to panic because the next gas station was across this big bridge.









It's pretty darn big isn't? (Note: the bridge is under going major construction. It was 4 pm, and traffic was getting heavy.) I am forced to enter the highway that leads to the bridge and I just know, I'm done. Well, right at the right edge of the picture is where my car dies. I am totally blocking one of the two lanes with my big a@@ SUV. One jack a@@ with his shirt off and a pick up has the nerve to stop right next to me and laugh and shake his fingers at me. By now Oldest is crying because he thinks the police, that's parked all over the bridge, are going to take us to jail. I'm screwed. Finally, a police officer pulls up behind me and is very angry that I'm blocking traffic. When I tell him what happened, he is outraged. JERK!
Another cop pulls up and asks me if I can call someone to bring me gas. Hubby of course. But I am always getting on Hubby for driving around with low gas. So I call him with a sick feeling and of course, he doesn't pick up. Call him three more times, still no pick up. It's his gym time, he always has his phone in his locker and I always am on him about that. I'm outraged.

Then I see a HELICOPTER. The news station, because yesterday was the first day that the bridge was back open in a few days. Nice. I'm trying to hide.

The Jerk came back, and pushed my truck with his car into the construction lane. Scratches and dents the back of the loaner in the process. Fifteen minutes later, the tow truck comes and towes me over the bridge, to the gas station I was hoping to make it to, and charges me $65.00- for less than a mile. I make it to the dealer by 5:15, make to day care by 5:45. Home by 6pm.

So let's do the math:
Gas: $6
Tow truck: $65.00
Migraines: at least 3
Sleepless nights: 5-7
Fight with Hubby for not answering his phone when I was stuck on the Bridge: 1
Dented truck that's not even mine: 1
Papers graded: 0

A week with B all by ourselves, priceless.

Happy Friday Everyone!