Free To Good Home (Only One Is Housebroken)

Wow, the kids are making me all KINDS of crazy today. Eli has been so screamy and obnoxious and unsleepy and unhungry and weird lately that I finally gave in and made him a doctor's appointment today, thinking he might have an ear infection. First, though, I had to go to the Y, feed the kids, shower, and pick up Breanna from school. Eli decided to have multiple throw himself on the floor, fling his head against the concrete and scream kind of fits when I went to pick the kids up from the childcare, because he has gone from loathing the daycare when he was an infant to loving it so much that he is now loathe to LEAVE it. The daycare worker shook her head in wonderment. "He is awfully angry lately, hmm?" Indeed.

I got home, then found three free Happy Meal or Extra Value Meal coupons to McDonalds in the mailbox (courtesy of Jim emailing corporate and complaining about not getting the correct food the last time we went, which to me seemed a bit... well, it got me free food, so I guess I can't complain.) Now, I KNEW Eli was already coming a bit unglued, but I was exhausted from wrestling him all the way from the basement daycare to the car half a mile away, and a quick easy meal sounded wonderful. So I pulled back out of the driveway and went to the nearby McDonalds. I only drove through, so it didn't add THAT much time to our total car trip, but Eli was a mess by the time I got us home.

I fed them, scarfed my own food, and took a quick shower, then put Eli down for a short nap before we had to leave again for Breanna. He only got about a half hour of sleep though, so by the time we picked her up and headed for the doctor's, he was grumpy again. By the time we got OUT of the doctor's, he was beyond grumpy. Breanna said that she could hear both kids yelling and clambering around the entire half hour she was waiting for us. What she couldn't see was that they were playing crazy circus games of crawling behind and under the exam table, trying to rip the blood pressure cuff off the wall, and throwing the little wheeled doctor's chair back and forth across the room. I was literally just running around like a crazy person, trying to restrain one child while the other wriggled away from me to find more (loud, embarrassing) mischief to get into. I was hissing and issuing threats and trying to enforce time-outs on my lap and just generally flailing around uselessly. Also, Eli chose that time to have a giant poo and of course I had left the diaper bag in the car. So imagine all of the mayhem PLUS bonus Lysol and Feces aroma.

By the time we got out of there (leaving rolls of shredded tissue-y exam table covering paper in our wake,) the doctor had sympathetically patted my shoulder no less than three times. Also, did I mention that in order to get Eli's weight, I finally had to get on the scale WITH him, then be weighed alone, to subtract the difference? Nothing like unexpectedly getting weighed when you've just eaten salty fast food and are bloated and PMS-y.

Anyways, he's still screaming. And flinging food and toys and himself all over the place. Even though he DOESN'T have an ear infection, or any other sort of malady. Well, other than being an infant. Glad we got to pay seventy dollars (thanks for changing our insurance, husband's workplace!) to find that out.