HJ (and mommy's) Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Thursday, February 16, 2012

I think I have sufficiently recovered from the stress of last Friday to look back and laugh... a little.. .Or maybe it will serve as a warning to me the next time I delude myself into thinking I can do a million things when I am dragging around a very sensitive 3.5 year old and a 7 month old who doesn't like her carseat...

The morning started off with a LONG evaluation for HJ to see if she needs any additional therapies and switch preschools from her small, cozy, 2 day a week Lutheran church program to the 4 day a week intensive special-ed class at the public preschool. Honestly I was more nervous than HJ, who probably was just annoyed that these strangers were asking her to do basic things like count to ten, identify shapes and colors and body parts and put together a tower of blocks. Every time they asked her to do something, she kind of looked at them like, "Yea I can do this but I don't want to right now and you can't make me..."

I have to give credit to the speech therapist who found all kinds of creative ways to get her to participate, mainly by convincing her that she was playing a game rather than being tested. So after over an hour of Pinkalicious dolls counting candles on cupcakes and princess stickers stuck all over Curious George, we raced off to our next activity-- "Stroller Steps" as HJ likes to call it.

Now I would gladly have skipped the class after the long and drawn-out evaluation, but HJ doesn't like having her routine upset, and Friday mornings means "Stroller Steps" at the mall with "baby Mitchell." I grabbed our giant double stroller, loaded it up with snacks and exercise bands and all the other stuff that HJ needs for security, and we literally ran through the mall looking for the other moms and strollers. They're pretty hard to miss, and we eventually joined up and finished a surprisingly tough class of lunges and jumping jacks and singing Old McDonald had a farm...

I tried to be a good mom and pack some healthy snacks for HJ and Lila, but after finishing them off and eating baby Mitchell's snacks too, HJ decided she really needed a Mcdonald's hash brown. Against my better judgment I got her the hashbrown and then we booked it to our next activity, Korean class.

Up until now it hadn't been that bad of a day, but things from here went downhill pretty quickly. To get to Korean class, which was in the city, meant taking the highway, which for some reason HJ says is "scary" and "too fast" (Sol asked her if it was just mommy's driving that was too fast, but HJ said it was both mommy and daddy so I was a little bit redeemed there!). Being in the city meant no parking which meant walking pretty far lugging the 30 lb carseat (b/c I didn't have the snap-and-go with me b/c of previously mentioned giant double stroller taking up our entire trunk) and HJ carrying her hashbrown and her numerous bags of stuff while cars whizzed by us.

Got to Korean class late, and it was our first day, so HJ was really staring down the nice Korean teacher and refusing to participate in her nice Korean songs and games. Lila, on the other hand, was having a ball with all the stimulation, but all I could keep thinking was I probably need to nurse her before we leave and get back on the scary, too fast highway. Apple juice and crackers after class seemed like the perfect break for HJ, who have you noticed, never says no to snacks. But being so distracted with Lila and another 8 month old sibling who was HUGE compared to little Lila by the way, I sat HJ on a high table and stool to eat her crackers. The next thing I know, there is a huge crash and HJ (and chair) are toppled on the floor and HJ is wailing. Granted, it was a pretty tall stool and a long way down, but if you don't know HJ, she is a DRAMA queen under even the most normal of circumstances so you can only imagine the loud crying that ensued from this incident.

HJ got a purple lollipop and that seemed to distract her enough to get us out the door, until we were back in the car and she decided she needed a different color lollipop, not purple. At this point I seriously debated going back and getting another lollipop just to avoid an hour of crying on the highway, but HJ managed to calm down enough so that wasn't necessary. Phew.

Basically, we made it home in one piece, but we did have to stop at McDonald's again (yes I know, two times in one day, really bad) and I decided that Korean class in the city is too much for us at this time. It's too bad because I really loved the idea of HJ learning Korean with her friends who are also adopted, but that will have to go on the list of things that sound good in theory but in reality don't quite work out (i.e. ballet class..)

Ever since this day, HJ has been re-enacting her dramatic fall from the chair numerous times for Daddy's benefit... Now I wish I could say that we will never have such a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day again, but I can already think of another day that probably falls in this category... I will have to save that for another post since I am already getting exhausted from recounting this one...

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing! It makes me feel more normal too...don't you love our SPIRITED toddlers?!

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  2. Oh Angela...what a rough day. You are supermom!

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