Leaving the house with an infant (Part "I'm so done with this now")

So I had another post almost done about yet ANOTHER trip I had to take alone with the baby, and I just couldn't bring myself to finish it. Because honestly, that was weeks ago, and it seems like every day there are more and more trips. And each one offers its own challenges but it's really just more of the same. And each one seems to get slightly better than the last. Or not. It just depends. But I'm realizing that every single one so far has been an EVENT, and I just can't have this blog turn into a description of every random outing I take with the little sucker. Seeing as how most of my "trips" from here on out will be with the kid, and I'm guessing reading about how awesome it was to go to the store trying to get her baby tylenol while she was screaming her head off will get old awfully fast. And if I'm getting bored writing about it, you must be bored reading about it.

So to summarize, yes, I did have to take her to the store and they were all out of baby tylenol and I got to stand in line at the pharmacy counter while she wouldn't stop crying. That whole afternoon she wouldn't stop crying because she got her vaccines that day. And although she handled it like a champ during, she got up 3 hours later in what appeared to be utter agony, most probably a life or death situation even, the way she was carrying on. Yesterday, I got to take her to my doctor's appointment and although we had a great lunch beforehand (in which I got to eat a couple of bites even), she started screaming in the exam room just as my doctor walked in. So my doctor said she'd come back later and left me in the exam room to nurse her. That was exciting. And nursing seemed to help for a while, but somehow the thought of her mom getting a pap smear must have been so painful for her, poor thing. So she proceeded to cry again when the doc came back in and continued to for the duration of the exam.

My previous trip to the doctor's office resulted in me struggling to get her fed, cleaned, and out the door with all her gear only to have the office call me to ask if they could reschedule. That was the day I had a meltdown. Well, actually, I had a meltdown for about 2 weeks straight and I'm not entirely sure it's over yet. But that day it all came to a head. I got off the phone with the doctor's office, called G, and started crying. I was even practically crying on the phone with the receptionist. I had WOKEN the baby up dammit, and I'm already on my way. What do you mean she's running late???? The receptionist was remarkably calm and unhelpful. Well, you can still come in if you want, but you'll be waiting for an hour and a half. I had made plans for lunch after the appt and seeing as how it was my first interaction with adults in weeks, I was determined to keep it. AND I had even called the doctor's office earlier in the morning to see if I could postpone the appointment since the DZ had been sleeping and I didn't want to wake her. Not later in the day, they said, since the doc would be in surgery. And yet, when they called, they wanted to schedule me, guess when, a little later in the day, right when she was supposed to be in surgery.

I've had to nurse her now in the car again (because coming back from SF a couple of weeks ago, she started going crazy around Mountain View and I just couldn't deal with a wailing infant for another hour on the road). That lengthened our trip by another hour and resulted in more nursing discomfort for both of us but ended with me maybe finally starting to get the hang of it. Although she initially liked car rides, and still kind of does, the periods where we stop for lights or slow down have become harder to bear. Most rides lately have seemed like a crying fit just waiting to happen.

I wish I could say that I'm becoming a pro. The truth is that it stresses me out every time. There is nothing worse than sitting in the front seat driving when your baby is the back crying her heart out. Even sitting back there with her isn't much better, and actually might even be worse because still there's nothing to do. I found that out one day when I sat back there with her while G drove. She's a little too young still to be entertained by a song or story or even really stuffed animals or something like that. G is much calmer than I am about these kinds of things. I freak out when she starts crying while he seems better about accepting that no trip is bound to be without any incidents at all - it just comes with the territory now. And he points, correctly (or so I'll admit when I'm calm and rational) that we can't stop going anywhere because of her (although when I was being irrational and in meltdown mode, I said that yes, of course we can, I'm not taking her anywhere for at least another year or two).

So I guess all I can hope for is not that things will get better but that I'll get better about dealing with them. I must say that I was much calmer nursing my kid in the exam room yesterday (and having to still hear her crying after) than I would have been a few weeks ago. So I guess we'll see how that goes.