10.19.2006

Traffic and Potties

This has been a pretty busy and exciting week. Between preparing for our move this weekend, doctor’s appointments, and activities with the boys, there are several topics of conversation that I would love to cover. However, I think I will stick to two topics, traffic and potties.

I had the luxury of house shopping yesterday. I have come to one conclusion; I am not patient enough to live in Atlanta. I have a new respect for my brother in-law and sister in-law, who for the most part, live smack in the middle of Atlanta traffic. I fight the morning rush hour at least once a week on my journeys with Ivey and her specialists. Normally, Ivey’s appointments are early and I am too nervous to care much about the traffic. I do pity the poor soul who has been selected to ride with me - LOCKED - in a moving vehicle during the infinite ride to and from Atlanta. Keep in mind; here lately I have had a limited amount of contact with adults. This computer has been my main means of communication. I imagine between the nervous jitter talk and the ‘I need an adult conversation talk’, the person in the car with me is looking for the escape hatch. Anyway, yesterday evening when it took me an hour to make it from 16th Street to the Canton exit on I-75, I decided that I am not cut out for the traffic.

Two reasons:

One, I realized that I could not remember navigating my car for the past two exists. Not one thing about the 15 minutes that had elapsed could be recalled: not driving, changing the radio, applying the brakes - nothing. A pink elephant wearing a tutu could have walked in front of me and I did not see it. Somehow I managed to negotiate between lanes and break lights without consciousness. Actually, I don’t even now if I changed lanes.

Two, I am a people watcher. It is amazing what people do when they think no one is watching or forget that others are watching. So during the time that I was conscious, I watched the people sitting in the cars around me. In a nutshell, people are strange! My breaking point in this drive was when the 800 year old man pulled up beside me in his Z car and did the up-down of my minivan with a funny little grin on his face. It should be a law that moms with minivans should have a red sports car to drive when the kids aren’t with her. What makes this worse, there was a truck driver that actually honked his horn and smiled down at me through my open sun roof! Hello.... minivan equals mom.

Now about potties. Today I finally figured out why God gave me two sons. When one child says they need to potty, we all go, along with all of our equipment (stroller, feeding pump, Ivey’s pink bag, purse/diaper bag, Walker’s blanket, and all of Knox’s gadgets). Obviously, all of these things do not fit into one stall. So today as Knox proudly announced, with the stall door open, “Mommy, I can reach the potty STANDING” to everyone in the vicinity while Walker watched in admiration, I realized why I have boys.

So did the lady in the restroom with us.

2 comments:

Chaotic Mom said...

You are a woman after my own heart. I have three boys, two deaf with cochlear implants. I loved the last sentence on your bio about "new normal". Abosolutely NOTHING could have prepared me for what we've been through, what we have yet to face.

Love the potty story, because I can SOOOOOOOOO relate. ;)

Linda said...

I have heard terrible things about traffic in Atlanta. I hate traffic, too! I live in a small rural town in Maryland, which has four traffic lights along the main street. It can literally take you 30 minutes or so during rush hour to get through these four lights. Baltimore traffic is not good either and I really hate driving on the beltway. I zone out sometimes when driving, too! It is weird to get someplace and wonder how the heck you got there!

My husband is a people watching and it makes me insane when I am in the car with him, because I am constantly worried that he is not paying attention and then I nag, so I guess this is why I drive about 95% of the time. I am a terrible passinger.

As far as the potty goes, I just wish that my three year old would want to use one. She refuses. With this new baby coming I would love to get rid of her diapers!

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