The Deciding Factor

I hate having to make decisions that force me to weigh the good of one over the good of another.   I am supposed to attend a meeting tonight for MOPS (I am on the steering team), and as Casey is working late, I was planning on taking Kenny over to my parent’s house for the night so that they could watch him and I could go out.

Unfortunately, we are doing a minor renovation to the house, and wouldn’t you know it, not only to I have to go to Home Depot for the SECOND time today (the one that’s 30 minutes away, instead of the one that’s fifteen minutes away) to buy the tile they need for tomorrow morning, but  tomorrow is the day that they are disconnecting the washer and dryer for the next three weeks.   I don’t know about you other Mommies out there, but I do about five loads a week.   This is broaching on catastrophic.   What do three weeks of undone laundry look like?   What do three weeks of undone laundry smell like?  

So I’ve decided that I need to stay home tonight for a variety of reasons:  to wash everything in the house that might need a trip through the washer and dryer, because I’m about to put Kenny (who actually just went down for a nap, no doubt because of the angst of our first trip to Home Depot where we stood in line for twenty minutes to return a vanity that their computer said we never bought, and then endure the questioning as to whether or not is was actually shop-lifted… yeah, I walk out of stores everyday with seventy pound boxes of bathroom appliances… then through the ordeal of buying another one) in the car AGAIN for an hour roundtrip to Home Depot for the tile (not to mention the time we will then spend in Home Depot, otherwise known as The Place Where Time Died), because Dudley still hasn’t gotten a walk today, which means I’m going to  have to put a post-nap toddler into rain gear and buddle him into the stroller for as long as we all can stand so that Dudley’s little canine brain doesn’t explode from a build-up of suppressed energy, and because my parents live forty-five minutes away and that’s another car trip for  the already car-sick  Kenny and the Mama.  

But:  staying at home tonight means that I will miss the meeting I’ve committed to, and miss the post meeting Girls Night Out that I so desperately need.   Staying home tonight means that I’m disappointing my sister, who is the coordinator of our MOPS chapter and the organizer of the meeting.   And finally, staying at home tonight means that I will need to swing by the grocery store on our way home from Home Depot, because we have no food in the house after having a college kid stay here to watch Dudley this past weekend, and I need something to feed my poor boy for dinner.

Did I mention that it’s raining?   Did I mention that there are workmen in the house, dismantaling the offending laundry room, with loud and dangerous tools, which we should really go someplace else to avoid?   And that going out to my parent’s house right now would really be the safest thing to do?  

What a crummy example of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.   Situations are so unfairly presented sometimes.   The choice I am making to stay here is not the best, and yet the alternative leaves my house in a lurch and my child in the car way too long.   If only Mary Poppins could show up and babysit and do laundry tonight.   Hm.

At least my angel is taking a rare nap, and I am freed up for the moment to express myself.   Too bad I can’t be using this “free time” to catch up on some laundry.

PS – Three hours after that post, and still no trip to the Home Depot or the grocery store.. by the time Kenny awoke from his beauty sleep, it was snack time.   Sometime during that snack preparation, he reached over my shoulder and pulled down a half-full coffee pot all over us, the counter and the floor.   After that was cleaned, it was Poopie Diaper Time.   After that was cleaned, it was Dudley Walk Time, which lasted for about eight minutes, as the rain was just too much.  

When we got back home, Kenny turned into the little girl from The Exorcist.   I made the mistake of giving him a chocolate chip cookie, and from then on it’s been more than a little bit of Whine-Tantrum-Scream City.   And for dinner, he’s gone from being an “all I want is CRACKERS!” kid to “WAFFLE now or I will scream!” little monster.   I’ve toasted seven, that’s right SEVEN, waffles for him today (at least three were whole wheat!) and he’s eaten most of them (except the three halves he handed over to Dudley and the two halves I ate) along with mountains of cheese, bananas, apples and cereal.   Now we really have no food in the house.   Looks like an early morning tomorrow (after my late night laundry date) to go to Home Depot and Safeway before the guys come back to work again.   Grr.