Cheeky

Let's start with my weird dream last night: Joan Rivers giving me fashion tips and helping to get me coiffed for some kind of art show debuting striped cotton mini-shorts. For babies. So weird.

Then I woke up, did all mom things to get three people ready for our morning outside in the real world. Abby had a date with a sharp needle or two. Immunization day. All bad.

We get to the doctors. I'll preface this with this: military insurance-while it's been excellent for our family in coverage it does have a one-size-fits-all mentality in some facilities. You may proceed.
We get to the doctors and I decide ad hoc-ly that it would be "so much easier" holding the 9 month old rather than having her in her carrier. And oh yeah, herding my meandering toddler while trying in vain to get him not to touch a single germy sneezed on thing. So easy.

Obviously and thankfully, we look pathetic enough to inspire people to open doors for us and we fumble up to the check in desk. Or I guess it's the check in desk. There is no sign (again, military) but it's close to the entrance so one can assume. We check in 10 minutes early and I survey the waiting area to find that we are probably number 59 in a room of at least 60. So much for easy.

We find two seats next to the aisle. Good mom move. I balance Abby on one knee while corralling Grayson to the window seat so he can give a squirrel play-by-play. For thirty seconds.

I balance Abby on the other knee, check my watch and see it's been less than a minute since we sat down. I'm already exhausted. The angels hear my cry and the nurse calls us next. Wow, that was fast. Okay, perhaps back to kinda easy?

Temperature fine, weight same, head circumference great. "Please go back to the waiting area." Really? Are you sure? You want us to go back to The Land of I'd Rather Be Grocery Shopping in My Underwear For Reals? I want to trade lives with that woman behind the check-in desk. We all begrudgingly walk back to the waiting room like whipped puppies. Damn, we almost made it.

At least this time G has somehow confiscated a bowling alley pencil and can now occupy himself with constructing an entire underwater scene straight out of a Shel Silverstein drawing- a scribble of a shark, a dark line of a boat, and a few concentrics of a big whale. "Do you like sharks or whales, Mommy?" I opt for whales. They will take longer to draw.

10 minutes pass. Abby goes from clutching my purse straps to mouthing my vanilla mint lip gloss. Mmmm....Safe.
20 minutes crawl past. Grayson is rocking the chair back and forth asking (loudly) who is "that orange kid (red hair, orange stroller) and what kind of sick did he might have." We later found out his name is also Grayson. That is the best news we get for the rest of the day.
30 suicidally long minutes later and yahoo- finally we hear our name again. This time we are ushered to the back room where the actual doctor makes an entrance soon after the nurse leaves and we are in business. He's friendly, he's chatty and he sing-songs words to Abby so she is inquisitive instead of afraid. Grayson even high fives him - twice! Who is this guy?

That's where the honeymoon ended. At the end of the exam, doc asks to see her immunization booklet. I don't have one. That's why I gave the nice person at the "front desk" (remember the one that could've possibly been some kind of NetFlix kiosk instead?) Abby's records to copy. Thought we covered that. So doc leaves in somewhat of a huff and I have a sneaking suspicion he is not coming back. Really? I'm being punished for not keeping my own little black book of shots for my kids? How did I eff this up already?

I will not bore you with more details other than to say the doctor did not come back for quite some time. The nurse actually clued him in that we were still there and waiting so we were quickly escorted from one "nurse's station" (fancy word for yet another room in which to wait) to another and nobody seemed to know just why the hell we were there. I remember my dream from last night and realize that no, this day unfolding itself in the form of metal chairs and public restroom visits is the true nightmare.

TWO HOURS LATER I am pissed. I am waiting in yet another waiting room wondering what the hell this is all about. My toddler couldn't have found another ounce of patience in his little fidgety body if I paid him in Hershey's kisses and peanut butter cups. And my other baby couldn't go one more second in my arms - so painfully close to her stash of warm milk - if I paid her in air bubbles and belly raspberries.

So I time out. Completely and utterly max out. Grab purse from petri-dish chair, scoop up droopy children and walk my mad self to the fake ass front desk. I demand (read: asked for in a whisper) our records without much fanfair and walk right the F out. Ha, screw you waiting room blackhole!

We awkwardly schlep out into the parking lot. Grayson is holding on to my pantleg as I skooch Abby further up on my hip. I'm sure we look like a clump of people who just spent the night in the airport but we are standing tall with the wind at our backs in triumph and personal victory. Then, Irony sucker punches me in the throat.

I turn one way toward my car and Grayson who is still dutifully clinging to my pantleg turns the other. My pants hit the deck. They. hit. the. deck. Undies included. That's right: big girl undies and black yoga pants all around my ankles. It doesn't get better than that now does it? There I was making my big exit and FLAM, I'm showing approximately 174 cars and minivans (some occupied, some not) two twin cheeks and some stark naked ghostly white thigh. (Really should consider tanning cream.) The best part? I was so flustered by spending over two hours in that doctor's office without ever receiving immunizations for my daughter that I did not even blush when this dropping "trou" occurred. That's some kind of pissed. That is go home and disenroll yourself from this particular military facility kind of pissed. Oh yes we did. Take that, doctor's office! You will never get to see this full moon again. You lucky lucky bastards.

(Truth be told, I'm quite sure they never even missed us. We'd still be rotting in that waiting room playing Eye Spy until my insides drowned in their own miserable cries of helplessness and woe.)

Military Facility with Your Hands Totally Up Your BumBums? Unfollow.