Waiting

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to get a flat tire. In the parking lot at my daughter's school. The middle school. I never liked going to middle school the first time around 25 years ago. I like it even less when I have to sit in a parking lot for an hour with my three year old waiting for a guy to come and help me change the flat tire. Actually, there wasn't any helping involved. He changed the tire all by himself. And, I was parked next to one of the few shade trees in the lot. That was nice.

In theory, I could have changed that tire all by myself, but towing around a three year old complicates things a bit. Those three year olds know little to nothing about personal space, and the tire changing scenario is no place to teach that lesson. Plus, we have a Triple A membership. Thought I should cash in on that.

So after I rearranged the original dental appointments, the 3 year old and I waited at the tire place for the unfixable tire to be replaced (my decision, not theirs). The tread was really worn, and we are planning to drive to California in a few weeks. I thought I might as well take care of that and get the necessary alignment so that the right front tire doesn't wear down to the nubbins again. For an hour and a half, we kept the other "waiters" and the tire guys pleasantly amused by performing a improvisational dance routine choreographed by the three year old.

Those tires were slapped on just in time for me to dash over to the middle school one more time (carefully avoiding the parking place where we picked up two nails in the tire the first time around), retrieve the 12 year old, and dash over to the dental office. Only to wait again. This time, we waited 30 minutes. And then the three year old and I waited another hour on top of that. Luckily, we sneaked over to Wendy's for part of that time as I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, and her daily food intake since breakfast consisted of 3 lollipops.

Today, the 10 year old had her turn at the dentist's office. More waiting. This time we were in that office 2 1/2 hours from start to finish. Don't ask. It's too complicated and boring to tell the story behind that one.

The amazing part of all of this waiting is that the three year old didn't melt down once. Not once. Even though she was tired and hungry and thirsty the whole time. We spent over six hours sitting around waiting for stuff to happen over the last two days. I am lucky if I get six hours of sleep a night.

And now we are patiently waiting for the end of May to come so that we can be reunited with Poetroad. I hope I don't throw a tantrum between now and then. Cross your fingers.