All We Need Is Just A Little Patience (cue whistling)

I am not a patient man. (Go ahead, I'll wait for the laughter to subside) Granted, having children has forced some patience, but it's not like it would be my choice of super power like Mr. Smith. Tonight Job would have looked at me and said, "Dude, I'm out. You win."

On Tuesday evenings, Terri works late and I have the children. I was working on a project at work. I look up, it's 4:15. I look down and up again, it's 5:05 and I'm supposed to be out the door to get the kids. I shut down and throw everything in my bag intending to finish at home. As I'm walking toward the door to the car it begins to rain sheets of rain sideways. Figuring I'm heading home, I just walk outside and cross the lot to my car. By the time I close the door, I'm mostly soaked. My hair is dripping and my glasses need their own wipers. I pull out of the parking lot and head toward home and within 3 minutes the sun is shining and there's not a drop of water coming down.

As I pull up toward the house the radio reminds me that we're well into May and Mother's Day is this weekend. May is notoriously busy in our family to begin with. Mother's Day for 3 mothers and birthdays for my brother-in-law, father-in-law, Gage and Parker.

So I think, I'll grab the kids and run a few errands and maybe pick up a gift or two. The kids get ready fine, we're in the car for two minutes and two out of three are asleep. This wouldn't normally be an issue except that I planned on everyone walking when we arrived at the store. No strollers in the car. We get to the first store and I gently wake everyone up. That is like flipping the switch in my daughter. She went from sweet to, um, not-so-sweet in less than a second.

After calming her down we get into the store. I find the section I'm looking for and proceed to start comparison shopping. Then comes the bathroom announcement. So everyone gets gathered up and we head to the bathroom. We get back to the first section and there are no salespeople anywhere in sight. After a trek through two other sections, we finally locate one who says she is knowledgeable about the product I'm looking at. But, she's busy and she'll get there shortly. Over 12 minutes later she finally shows up.

By this time keeping the kids contained at all is almost hopeless. And, of course, she wants to socialize with them. Because, as she explains 4 times over the course of a two minute conversation, she's a retired kindergarten teacher who loves kids. Apparently she does not love sales commissions. I ask again for her to explain the differences between the levels of the three products and she proceeds to read the three little signs posted up in front of the products. Because apparently I couldn't do that myself?

Finally I give up on making an informed decision and do a quick cash to bells and whistles ratio and make a choice. She punches a bunch of information into her iPad and says they have 3 in stock. She rings me up, all the while still trying to engage with the kids. Then she tells me I have to drive around to merchandise pickup.

So, all three kids get herded toward the door, where it proceeds to rain again on the way to the car. Not as bad, but enough that all I hear from Parker is, "it's raining dad, it's raining dad, it's raining dad" over and over and over. I drive 20 seconds around the building and unload all three kids again. We get inside and the three kids run straight over to a vending machine and start pushing buttons. I hand the receipt to the runner and he punches in the code and their little clock starts ticking.

I see the sign on the door saying that 100% of the people who picked up merchandise yesterday had their transaction completed in under 5 minutes. I watch the clock while trying to minimize hurricane children and it stops at 48 seconds. Great, that means my item is headed out the door. 1 minute goes by, 2 minutes, 3 minutes. Finally after 6 1/2 minutes the runner and two other young kids come through the door to tell me that they actually have none of my item in stock and the cashier made a mistake and I should take this return slip and head back to the cashier to either return or exchange the item I never had to begin with. So much for service under 5 minutes.

I look at this kid while Parker tries to flip himself out of my arms and Kiara opens and closes the automatic door. Calmly I ask if there is some way that she can come to me so that I don't have to get the kids in and out of the car again. He says, "Sure, no problem. I'll go get her." Cue another 5 minute waiting period. She comes through the stockroom and Gage looks up and says, "Ugh, you again." After having him apologize, her reply was, "Everyone makes mistakes." Now, at this point, I've been stuck in this tiny room with no air conditioning for close to 20 minutes. In my head I can see my arm raising quickly and backhanding this woman so I turn and pick up Parker and just quietly say, "I'd like to return this." Now I'm down an hour and I've got nothing to show for it. At this point all 3 kids start the hunger complaint.

Across the street I've got a Denny's and a Wendy's. Knowing they haven't even remotely had behavior good enough for kid's meal toys, I opt for Denny's. We get seated and the waitress asks for our drink order. The kids attempt to order smoothies (in flavors they won't even drink) and she writes it down. What type of waitress looks to a 3 year old to order her own food? I correct the order to chocolate milk and she goes to get the drinks. I attempt to get Parker strapped into the high chair (which I liken to Sirius Black's description in Potter 3...It's like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands). Before he's even seated she's back with the drinks asking if we're ready.

At this point, both Gage and Kiara start chattering about what they want and again, she's writing it down. I quickly ask for a minute and get the kids menu. Gage actually knew what he wanted, pancakes, bacon and yogurt. Not my choice, but if he's going to eat it, fine. Kiara wants spaghetti and grapes. Again, fine. I decide on chocolate chip pancakes and grapes for Parker and she's back again. So I let Gage order his while I pick the first thing on my menu. To her credit, she did bring out the yogurt and grapes first so the kids had something to snack on. The yogurt came with this tiny cup of cut up strawberries and syrup. I'm guessing it was just a bit of ice cream topping to mix with the yogurt. Gage set it aside and proceeded to eat the yogurt.

As I'm getting Parker set with his grapes and chocolate milk the rest of the food arrives. The waitress sets down two full containers of maple syrup right in front of Parker. Has this woman never had a table with children before in her life? I'm quick enough to grab one, but he's got three fingers in the other one starting to tip it over before I catch it. So before I can eat, I need to get Parker's food ready and then clean up his mess.

At this point, Kiara has eaten half her grapes and three spaghetti noodles and she's full. Fine, no more food for the rest of the night. So she finishes the grapes. Gage actually eats all his dinner and goes back to the yogurt. Parker eats a few bites of the pancakes, rips through the bacon and the grapes and then tries to get Gage's yogurt. Gage, wanting to be a helpful big brother takes a spoonful to feed to Parker. Half of it ends up in his lap after he grabs the spoon. So now I'm cleaning up Parker again. During this fiasco Kiara manages to dump the strawberries onto the seat of the booth.

I quickly grab a stack of napkins and ask Gage to move. He leans forward. So, I pick him up off the seat and move him to the other side of the table and clean up her mess. I tell them that bedtime occurs as soon as we hit the door of the house. Then, I quickly start gulping down my food and Gage looks over and says, "Dad, we're sorry about all the bad behavior tonight."

I pause and look up ready to condemn that statement as a desperate attempt to get out of an early bedtime and realize that he's being aware of what has gone on and sincere in his apology. So I thank him for the apology and hustle everyone toward the door. Of course, everyone wants the kids menus, crayons and chocolate milk. So Gage and Kiara are juggling all of their stuff while I'm trying to get my wallet out of my pocket holding Parker and his milk. I pay the check, we get out the door and into the car to more rain, I might add.

We get home, I get the kids out of the car and get them onto the porch. I turn to lock the car and hear, "SPLAT!" Gage dropped his milk cup and split the side wide open. Of course, Parker tried to run right at it. So I have hold of his collar, two glasses of milk, my keys and Kiara jumps back away from the milk into my knee which immediately buckles. I set Parker down and line the kids up holding hands to minimize further damage while I unlock the door.

Needless to say we cut the bedtime routine down to under ten minutes. When I took my shoes off and laid back on my bed to decompress, I was so rigid I had to stand back up and stretch before I could fully enjoy laying down. All in all, complete and epic utter FAIL on the evening. Oh yeah, and Terri got caught up in a work emergency and won't be home on time. Joy.