Why I Don't "Get the Kids Out" More Often

This morning, I had an adventure--rather, a misadventure. Some time back, I used to send out emails on a fairly regular basis with stories about the terrible and bewildering things that happened to me when I went for a walk or a bike ride (these stories are cataloged in the Pat vs. Nature blog that, I think, should still exist and might even be accessible from this blog--I'm too lazy to look right now, but feel free to look if you're interested). For some reason, just about every time I went out, something weird, unusual, or nearly fatal happened to me. After the first few incidents, I figured I was cursed.

And then we had kids--and I started to only walk with other people--and the strange occurrences stopped completely. At first, I thought I had broken the curse. In fact, I hadn't. The curse had transferred from being conditional of me being out alone exercising to me being out with my children doing, well, pretty much anything. Now, if something can go wrong while I'm out with the kids (just me, mind you--if Libby or someone else is with me, or if it's just Libby out with the kids, then everything goes perfectly, which only adds to Libby's insistence that I should be getting the kids out to do things more often), it almost certainly will.

Today was a perfect example.

Libby didn't get home until late last night, and she is working late again tonight as well. Monday, through the summer, is library night (she signed Gabe up for a storytime that they both go to in the evening while I stay at home with Norah, since she doesn't tend to be very cooperative during group activities). Last week, they picked up some books and a movie, and the movie was due back. Also, we had a prescription waiting at the pharmacy that needed to be picked up.

"So," I thought to myself, in unusually optimistic spirits this morning, "Maybe this would be a good morning to get a little exercise and go for a walk, first to the library, then to the store to pick up the prescription and a few little things off the shopping list. It will be good to get the kids out, and lord knows I need the exercise." So that's what I set about to do.

First, there were the preparations. One of the reasons that I am reluctant to get the kids out and about is the sheer energy it takes to organize and prepare such an outing.

Even just an hour or so of walking around town requires a mess of arrangements: a fresh diaper for Norah; a change of clothes from whatever each of them are wearing because, even if they aren't still in their PJs (which they often will be--especially Norah--just because dressing her in anything that has to go over her head is still like dressing a giant, stubborn, uncooperative, wrong-headed cat--actually, that pretty much describes ANY cat that you might try to dress, so just imagine trying to dress one that weighs about 30 pounds) because whatever they are wearing will be covered in food or paint or play doh or any of a number of other things, and we can't be seen in public looking like we just came from the dump; I have to make Gabe go to the bathroom--not just try, he has to actually do it, which might take two or three attempts because, even if he swears he doesn't have to go, he will as soon as we get anywhere, and it won't be in the bathroom; put on shoes; gather something to drink and snacks--because, if I don't, one or both of them will pitch a fit because he/she/they are hungry/thirsty (and, of course, if I DO pack something, they'll have no interest in it); gather whatever we need to take with us (this morning it was the library books and his Fireman Sam DVD to return); load them both up in the stroller or the car, which is often an ordeal because Gabe instantly wants to play as soon as he's outside and getting him to cooperate can be fun times in its own right; and then we can finally be off. I will say this in favor of summer (and it is just about the ONLY thing I will say in favor of summer), at least I don't need to add coats/gloves/hats to the mix, because that's another time consuming step.

Then, of course, I have to get myself around. Admittedly, this doesn't really take that long because, frankly, I've given up on life and don't much care what I look like, as long as I have my wallet and keys and I'm wearing serviceable shoes.

So, there we were. All of our inside preparations were complete. I'd gathered everything I needed--or so I thought--and we went outside to load up in the stroller.

It was already too hot to be anything like a pleasant walk, and it was only going to get worse, I knew, but I had already come this far, so I wasn't going to back out of the exercise portion of the morning's activities. I found the stroller in the garage, pulled it out, and loaded the kids into it. Only, Gabe's umbrella wasn't on anymore, and I figured it was too hot and too sunny to NOT have it offering at least the inadequate shading it offered, so I found it on the floor in the garage and started trying to put it back on and straighten it out.

Honestly, I can't say enough bad things about this two child stroller we have. It would be easier for me to list the positive things it has going for it: it seats two children, and it has wheels. That's it. Really. It is an unmitigated failure of design engineering otherwise. There is nothing good about it, except that it allows me to contain both kids at the same time and move them from point A to point B without driving. I could go on and on about the things that are wrong with it, but I won't. This post is already longer than I figured it would be, and I haven't even gotten to the good parts yet.

But one design flaw is relevant, so I'll elaborate on it a bit. To my way of thinking, it has also proven to be on of the most frustrating problems with this stroller, the umbrellas. They are meant to move around, forward and backwards, to allow children to be passed under them or to moved out of the way if the monstrosity has to be folded up. The last time we folded it up, the umbrella was pushed forward as far as it would go (as it's supposedly meant to be), and then the poorly conceived joints that they're supposed to revolve on froze up. Now, the umbrella shoots straight forward in the front, at about ninety degrees, which, obviously is useless. So I installed the umbrella and fought with it for almost five minutes to try and move it back up where it might offer Gabe some relief from the sun (very little relief, since, besides being impossible to move around, the umbrellas are also only about twelve inches across when opened up, which isn't going to stop much sun).

I was utterly unsuccessful despite all of my best efforts. All I managed to do was pinch my finger once, smash my thumb once, and teach Gabe the phrase "What the fuck is going on here?!?" which he dutifully repeated right after I said it.

I threw the worthless accessory back into the garage and determined that, once we were done with this stroller, I would give burning it in anger a distinct consideration over passing it on to some other unsuspecting sap. We were moving on.

Except I had forgotten to put the library books in the stroller. I got those, then realized that I had also forgotten to pack their drinks and snacks. I went inside and got those. Then I remembered my wallet, which I went back inside to get. I went back out and ticked off the list again my head to make sure I had what I needed. Good to go.

So we started walking. We made it a little over two blocks from the house when I realized that I had also forgotten Gabe's library card. I pulled out my wallet and looked for mine. It wasn't in there. I must have pulled it out at some point because I never use it. Ugh. I turned around and headed home.

"What we doing?" Gabe asked.

"Going home. I forgot your library card," I answered.

"I want to go to library!" he demanded. And then he started to get upset.

"We're still going to the library," I consoled. "But we're going to drive." By this point, I was already streaming with sweat and had had more than enough of being outside.

God I hate summer. More and more every year. By the time I'm in my sixties, I expect that I will be a barely contained volcano of rage from the point the temperature reaches into the 80s until the leaves fall off the trees. Should be a treat for everyone around me.

So we went back, I got his library card, and we loaded into the van. We went to the library (where I had to park a block away because, for some strange reason, the place was packed--by the time we left, twenty minutes later, there were only two cars parked out there, and ours was one of them, so figure that one out).

We trekked inside and I pulled open the metal door that leads down the stairs to the kids' section. Gabe, in his seemingly boundless capacity for being distracted, wasn't paying a lick of attention to anything around him, and he turned his head to look at something and walked straight into the metal handle on the door. He teared up a little, but, really, handled it pretty well. If it had been Norah, we would have been packing back into the van as she would have been inconsolable for the next five minutes, and I'm one of those people who refuses to inflict his screaming children on other patrons in a public area.

Then library time began. The library has a toy section, which Gabe is a bit obsessed with playing in, despite the fact that we have pretty much the exact same toys at home. I let him go at it and tried to surround Norah with enough little toys to keep her occupied for a few minutes while I went and hastily picked out two new books and a new movie for Gabe. It took about five minutes to find something that would hold her interest long enough that I felt comfortable leaving her basically out of view (because the toy area is surrounded by tall bookshelves, which makes it impossible to see the kids while looking over the books or anything else down there). Then I found him two books--probably not very good ones because I only spent about forty-five seconds considering my options, nervous that, when I returned, I would find Norah climbing on the little slide or doing something else equally face threatening.

I returned to show the books to Gabe to get his approval. He glanced at them and, by way of acknowledgment of my admittedly substandard effort, turned back to his toys without so much as a nod of approval. Oh well.

"What movie do you want to get?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Fireman Sam!" he replied enthusiastically.

"Uhhhh," I sighed just loud enough for him to hear. I made sure Norah was still occupied and made a beeline for the DVD section, hoping to find something quickly. I found the Fireman Sam videos without any trouble because I'd found them in the same spot already on two separate occasions. And I passed. We've had one or the other of the two Sam DVDs they have checked out for almost two months now, and I have just about had my fill. So I quickly perused the other DVDs and tried to find something else I thought he'd like. Failing that, I picked up the first Bob the Builder DVD that my hand fell upon and called it good. He might not like it, but it's something different, and that's about all I care about these days. Clearly I just need to buy the two Sam DVDs they have and call it done. Goddamn Welsh are giving me the red ass (it's a Welsh program, for anyone unfamiliar with it).

Bob the Builder DVD in hand, I headed back to the play area and found something I wasn't expecting in the least. In fact, the situation wreaked such havoc on my brain in the instant that I first saw it that I don't even really remember my initial reaction to it, so I'm afraid that I can't even accurately describe my first view. But here's the best I can do.

Gabe was standing a few paces outside the play area with a befuddled look on his face. I saw that first, but before I asked him what the problem was, I spotted it on the floor. A turd.

Gabe has two varieties of poop (yes, more information than anyone wants, but it is somewhat relevant to the story, so bear with me). One is smooshy and sticks, quite graphically, to everything. It's a mess to clean up, but at least it usually stays centrally located, if you catch my drift. The second one . . . .

Last Halloween, I made a novelty cake for our party--kitty litter cake. Using a variety of cake mixes, smashed up and mixed together with a few other ingredients, I recreated a pretty believable likeness of kitty litter. But the piece de resistance (sorry, can't do the accent marks, don't know how and don't care) was the cat turds made of tootsie rolls. Tootsie rolls, in and of themselves, look a bit like turds. But, if you put them in the microwave for a few seconds, it's possible to smooth them out, squish them into little balls, or twist and curl them into unspeakable things. They are most convincing because of the consistency of the tootsie roll--they are just the right kind of waxy/slimy to look just like a pooh. And Gabe's second kind of poop looks JUST like this. Imagine if you took one of the small, one inch tootsie rolls, nuked it for a few seconds, then smushed it into a sort of rough ball. That's a Gabe turd--kind of like an extra large rabbit turd.

And I saw one on the floor. He'd obviously had a poop and, worst of all, his little turdlets were squeaking out his underwear and falling on the floor. Not surprisingly, I nearly panicked. Public place! Poop on the floor! Guilty child standing there with his hand on his butt! And, oh my god! What is Norah doing????

She was following Gabe out the play area and she had just picked up a waxy turd. Oh dear lord! I ran over, grabbed her hand and made her drop the offending object (which she began to cry about, because she doesn't like to have anything taken away from her right now--"Oh dear lord, child," I thought to myself, "Don't draw any more attention to us!"). Thankfully, I caught her JUST as she was getting ready to put it in her mouth.

Then I cast a wary gaze around the area to fully take in the damage. Gabe had left a trail of tiny little poops all the way to where he was standing. Could it get any worse? I looked around the library, sure that I would see a dozen people staring, pointing, and chastising me for having such disgusting, poorly managed children. Thankfully, there were only two older kids working on the computer and the two ladies working down there, both of whom were otherwise occupied. I was lucky that the area was mostly deserted.

I quickly snatched up all the turds--bare handed, of course--told Gabe, in no uncertain terms, to NOT move a muscle, and scurried off to the bathroom to dump them in the toilet. I washed up quickly, returned, picked up a few smaller ones (one of which Gabe had helpfully mushed into the carpet, so I had to use my fingernails, thank you very much, to pry it away from the carpet) that I had missed, picked up Norah with my non-poopy hand, then told Gabe to follow me to the bathroom.

As soon as he moved, a cascade of turdlets fell from his pants. It was like watching a rockslide in a movie. A half dozen little ones fell out followed by that one, giant boulder that always ends up crushing, or nearly crushing, an automobile that's driving far too fast in a "falling rocks" section of road. The big one looked like a half-bag of tootsie rolls, warmed up and half-assedly mashed together. How it escaped the confines of his underwear, I have no idea. Probably, the whole time I was messing with the other stuff and he was standing there, acting guilty and being all quiet, he was working it down the leg of his boxer briefs (note to self, boxer briefs SUCK at containing poopslides).

I quickly cast around again but found that, again, nobody else had seen this disgusting and horrifying display. Thank god for small favors. I scooped up all the crap in my non-Norah hand and hissed, "Follow me to the bathroom," to Gabe. He followed without any problems since his pants were now completely free of poop.

We went into the bathroom and I was finally able to get everything cleaned up. I washed everyone up and whisked them both out of the room. We cleaned up the play area (partly because I hate leaving it messy but mostly because I also wanted to do one last survey, just to make sure I didn't miss any pooh sprinkles), grabbed our books, checked out with a wry smile to the cute girl behind the counter ("wry" because I'm writing this in retrospect, probably "frazzled" or even "derailed" might have been more likely adjectives, though, to describe what I looked like by that point), and got the hell out of there as quickly and discreetly as possible.

My original intention had been to do some grocery shopping afterward, but, obviously, that wasn't going to happen, so I just went to the drive through window and picked up the scrip and went home.

There was actually quite an ordeal with getting the scrip, too, but, honestly, I'm too emotionally exhausted to go into it--and, really, it would be a poor denouement to this story since it was little more than a case of complete incompetence on the other side of the glass, and not really all that interesting (though certainly extra frustrating considering the last fifteen minutes I had just endured).

So, stick that in your "get the kids out more often" pipe and smoke it, world! I'll stay right at home, thanks, where at least I can keep the poop drops restricted to a few rooms of the house and don't have to worry about strangers judging us (probably with good reason) or Norah picking it up and feasting on it.