A Day to Forget

Today has been one of those super crap I-never-want-to-think-about-it-again days. The kind where you mentally flick through how many chocolates, DVDs, warm baths, books – or any combination of the above (or let’s face it – just one of ANY of those would be magic right now!) – it would take to make up for the crap-ness.

It started yesterday. It was our first day out of isolation for Cayden and I from covid. I got a last minute call from the hospital to ask if we could take a cancelled auditory appointment today. Foolishly and under pressure, I agreed. Never mind the fact we were only 24 hours out of a week’s worth of a virus that has forced the world to its knees.

Needless to say, I was exhausted. Before the appointment even arrived I wonder if I was up to more than just manning the children from the couch while they watched TV.

Over dinner last night as I fed Cayden his puree, my husband innocently asked me a question. I paused briefly to rub the exhaustion from my eyes. Cayden saw the opportunity and with a quick flick of his foot saw the entire bowl of puree cascade to the floor and smash. I knelt amongst the puddle of puree as I contemplated yet another lengthy clean up – I had cleaned up the very same section of floor just hours prior from vomit – against the odds of long covid when you don’t get enough rest. What can you do?

I cleaned this latest disaster up and pushed my body to prepare all the items I would need for the morning’s new appointment.

I arrived early. It should have been a good start. In line with turning a new mental leaf, I saw a toy area in the hospital waiting room and actually considered it. After checking with the receptionist about their sanitization policies, I allowed Cayden the greatest (and rarest) gift of all; freedom.

It took him five minutes to exhaust the delights of the toy area. He moved on to swiftly removing his shoes and socks and throwing them on the waiting room floor. Next, he found the stickers. The permanent kind attached periodically to all the seats to enforce Covid distancing between those waiting. Alas, the adhesive was no match for Cayden’s prying fingers. I started chasing my barefoot son around, trying to tell him no, while he gleefully kept peeling them off and I tried to frantically keep replacing them – or better yet, madly dash to the next one he had his eye on first before he could get to it. As the curious eyes of other parents started to track our movements, I made sure to hang my head to avoid eye contact as I sprang around after him.

Time for distraction! I grabbed his bottle and plonked him on my lap for a drink.

Alas, but no. He hustled the bottle and took off to the coffee table he had just been climbing and adeptly started pouring his milk all over it. I edged past another mother with her two sons as I hurried to find a box of tissues to clean up the new mess.

Finally, we were called in. My relief was palpable.

Momentarily.

Imagine my small child strapped to his stroller as they tried to administer various tests. He was determined to squeeze and wriggle and frustrate their processes.

For once, I was too exhausted to care about their struggles. I flopped on the floor and watched them do their job.

He was allowed a ten minute reprieve in the middle, at which point he started peeling papers off their walls, finding their cords and cables and running up and down their corridors with glee. I saw one office worker look up with surprise as my small charge appeared down her end of the private hallways. I heaved him back to my hip apologetically and strode back from where we came.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “It’s really hard to tell him no and have him understand since he had his brain damage. He’s also so excited to be out, he’s been home in isolation for so long…”

My words trailed off meaninglessly.

Back in the appointment and Cayden made quick work of his shoes. Again. One sturdy missile flew it’s way to my head before I registered to duck. It smacked my head before falling to the floor, looking like an innocent shoe and not at all like a dangerous projectile in the hands of my child. I winced in pain. The technicians were concerned and offered me ice. I waved them away. “He does this all the time at home. I get hit in the head every day from him throwing stuff,” I grimaced as I realised how bad that sounded on a parenting level. How do you explain the propensity of downs syndrome children and throwing things?

Eventually the appointment concluded. A quick nappy change was anything but. He wrangled the stroller to be by the bathroom taps, nearly tipping the stroller over in the process (with him in it), and then twitched his fingers around the rubbish bin lid repeatedly, preparing to deep dive into it with his arm. My squeals of frustration fell on deaf ears.

Finally, the bank of elevators. A waiting couple and I each tried to catch the same one. As I checked with the couple if this was going up or down (down was my destination and I was sure the arrow said down but yet it appeared to be going up) I heard a strange alarm sound. I carried on trying to figure out which way we were headed (it shouldn’t have been as hard as it was) when one of the couple politely pointed out to me that my son had his finger on the emergency alarm of the elevator.

He was ringing it.

That was the sound I was hearing.

“Oh!” I cried out. “I just took my eyes off you for a SECOND!”

They exited at their upwards floor then kindly pointed me back the way I had just travelled – down.

In a flurry of craziness we finally got to the carpark. As I prepared to plop him in his car seat, I realised somehow the carseat had become unsecured. Crap. Even beaming lights on my cell phone could not help me figure out where the piece of metal was I was meant to clip it to.

His brother’s car seat opposite it was!

Mission over, I finally got to the front seat where I unapologetically tore into the day-old remains of a donut from yesterday. I had thought as I packed last night I might just need the sugar hit today. True enough.

As I chewed (or inhaled) the partial donut I realised I could not take Cayden straight home where Luke was still isolating with Covid. His behaviour had shown me one thing clearly.

Cayden needed more outings.

I would try the local hardware store. I banged my head on a carpark sign in the mobility bay as I wrestled the stroller out of my boot ready to take him in.

Seriously?! This was starting to feel like a cosmic joke. I rubbed the sore spot on my head. Again.

I eyed the other two children with their grandmother in the indoor playground. The winter weather left me few options. The sound of their coughs carried over to me.

I took a deep breath. And let Cayden inside.

“Oh, look after the little baby!” the grandmother exclaimed to her two as Cayden took off to the slide. I didn’t have the energy to correct her and say he was actually a preschooler.

By the time I got home I was ready for bed. My husband kindly took the kids while I grabbed an hour of rest. I woke up still shattered. Ready to head back to my newly-favoured spot on the couch with a book while the kids watched tv for as many minutes as I could possibly eke out, I arrived downstairs to find… a mess.

Kinetic sand had been ground into the mat, the floor, my soft pink cushions and the whole lounge was in messy disarray. Furniture was moved, toys were everywhere and my sanity had long since fled.

I quietly asked my older son to clean up all the kinetic sand. He made a meagre effort. I asked again. Little happened. I asked a third time.

Then I snapped.

“JUST CLEAN UP THIS SAND!” I yelled as my fists pounded my thighs, not once, not twice, but five times.

His eyes widened in shock. I tore the bag off him as I started piling the sand off the floor back into the bag myself.

Soon he trundled off to play and I was left to get the wet wipes, the vacuum, and the dustpan. (I gave him a lengthy apology later). More than an hour passed.

I was still cleaning up the sand. My throat was sore and my chest was aching painfully from Covid. I knew I was overdoing it. The end seemed nowhere in sight.

I started to sob. Big, noisy sobs as I sat on my haunches and wiped and cleaned. The vaccuum had already run out of battery power; now it was elbow grease. If I was living in a movie, this would have been my breaking point. I would have screamed at the sky, “I GIVE IN! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!”

But my life isn’t a movie.

So instead, I stood to take another load of kinetic sand particles to the rubbish while armed simultaneously with one of Luke’s shoes to put away. A moment of tired clumsiness and before I knew it, the dustban had swiped a glass jar of medicine from the countertop and sent it spiraling to the tiles below… ready to smash into thousands of glassy smithereens.

As I watched the black syrup explode out and congeal on the tiles I could have cried.

Except – I already was.

I could have screamed and sworn at the top of my lungs.

I would have really liked to.

Instead, I sobbed harder, grabbed more wet wipes and started to clean up the tiny glass shards.

Two hours passed and I had finished cleaning. My favoured spot on the couch – the one where you can’t see the tv so the kids don’t climb all over me as much – had become the kids new play area. Luke proceeded to upend two boxes of tidied up toys all over that precious, clean spot.

But that wasn’t enough.

He then grabbed Cayden’s trike and proceeded to do noisy wheelies all over the lounge floor. The bean bags made a great landing destination for improvised trike crashes. This is the son with Covid who only tested a strong positive two days ago. As the noise mounted and I winced at what his driving could be like a decade from now, I resigned myself and gave in.

I pulled the earmuffs off their hook in the pantry and stuck them over my ears.

Some days I never want to repeat.

Ever.