In the name of science

Sometimes I wonder if it's really worth all this...

So yesterday (Tuesday) started as a fairly harmless day. At 9 I called to get the baby a doctor's appt. to check on her cheeks-she has baby acne that could rival any teenager out there. I wanted to be sure it wasn't getting infected or something. The nurse said they could see us at 11 which was great. Plenty of time to get everyone dressed and fed and out the door by 10:30, but also time to get to Blaine's 1:00 appt. with the child study center. You see I signed up the kids to participate in studies conducted by the psych dept. at a nearby university. You know, things like telling the child where you hid a toy in another room and then showing them a video of you hiding it in another place...which one will they believe? So the day was shaping up ok. Of course it was raining, which is no piece of cake when loading and unloading 3 kids, but I thought 2 stops, not too bad...silly me!

We made it out the door, loaded up, and pulling out of the driveway by 10:30...great! It was barely even raining at that point so I was especially thankful. The doctor's visit went well enough. Just a terrible case of baby acne-a little lotion, but not too much, just wait it out, basically. I even managed to sneak in flu shots for the older two. Wow, I was making good progress! On the way to the university, we grabbed a bite to eat. A little bribe I made with Claire so she wouldn't whine while waiting for the nurse to come in with the "pinch". That's what she calls it. Guess our nurse in TX must have always said, "Just a little pinch and we're done!" or something like that. So we ate our meal, if you can call fast food a meal, and waited in the parking space for the girl from the study center to meet us outside. They meet you out there to give you a parking pass and take you into the building. It was raining constantly now. Not a downpour or anything, but still very annoying.

She explained the studies to me-in one she would read him a book, teach him the name of one of the animals, and see if he seemed to learn it, in another she would place him in a room full of toys, a live hamster, and a live fish and see which one he went to first. He was a bit apprehensive at first after all he'd fallen asleep in the car in between the appointments, so they decided to try the toys room one first. They let me go in with him but alas all he did was hug my leg. He's not usually my shy one, that's my daughter's role, but on occasion he pulls out the shy card. What impeccable timing! We gave up on that one and moved on to the other study. She read him a pop-up book of animals several times and then taught him the name of the parrot. Then she used several other pictures and toys of parrots and flamingos to see if he learned which one the parrot was. I'd say it was pretty inconclusive. Sometimes he's grab the right picture or toy, but mostly he'd just stare at them. I wanted to say make the sound effects for him, he remembers that much better than names! But I guess that might mess up the data. A fairly uneventful experience, but he is just 22 months after all.

With that behind us, we loaded up the car once again. But guess what? The car wouldn't start. I'd turn the key, but all it could muster was this click, click, click, click sound. To make matters worse, my cell phone was completely out of battery. I tried the usual things: turn off everything-radio, heater, wipers, etc., pleading prayers, hitting the steering wheel, NOTHING was working. So I packed us back up again and headed back into the building. Thankfully I had the charger with me so I parked us all by a plug and paged my husband. He was super thrilled to leave the hospital to come get us (note the sarcasm here) after all he's only working in the NICU this month. By the time we moved all the carseats into our Mazda-that was a fun experience all on it's own-it was nearing 3:00. I knew the baby would wake soon and realize she'd gone an extra hour since she ate and Jeff thought he'd be finished around 4:30 or 5 so we decided to stay in town and play at Barnes and Noble instead of driving the 30 minutes home.

Ok, I'm really trying to shorten this story...I promise...but we're only getting started. The kids played well at the book store as I fed the baby. Of course Blaine filled his diaper-and I do mean filled-announcing "Ewww, poo-poo!" to everyone in earshot. And of course all the supplies are in the other car. So we loaded up the stroller and walked down to CVS. Yes, it's still raining...it rained the ENTIRE day...but we were under cover most of the way. Then it was back to the car, load up the baby and Claire, and toss Blaine in the trunk to change his diaper. Thankfully we have a hatchback so it shielded me from most of the rain. Meanwhile (about 4:10 now) Jeff calls, just about 30 minutes more work then off to get a new battery. So we finish loading and head back to the hospital. Well, 30 minutes turned into about 1.5 hours. I drove the kids around town again and again and finally at 6 he was finished. We HAD to vote, after all we do live in VA. So we voted, went home to grab some dinner and feed the baby again. Once we'd recharged our batteries-no pun intended-we headed out for some jumper cables and a battery. We got the cables hooked up and the car started right away. Yea!!! We headed home one last time and arrived around 9:15. We got the kids dressed in pjs and in bed and Jeff began watching the news shows and checking his favorite web sites. What a day!

And so I ask again...was it really worth all this, in the name of science???