You have just successfully finished ammassing, purchasing, and unloading a week's worth of groceries from Wal-Mart. As you are putting your almost fifteen-month-old into the van, you notice that he smells like poop. Do you:
A. Immediately change him?
B. Strap him in his carseat and make a mental note to try to remember to change him when you get home.
A. You lay him down, take down his pants, then look for the wipes and diapers you keep in the car. Sorry! No Wipes! Go back to choice B.
B. You strap him in the car and proceed to drive the less than five-minute drive home.
Once you get home, you realize the baby has fallen asleep. You unload all the groceries first, go to the bathroom, and then unstrap the baby to take him out of the car. You remember that he has poop in his diaper. Do you:
C. Immediately change him?
D. Lay him down in his crib and let him sleep?
C: If you chose C, he is crabby that you have woken him up and complains the whole time you change him. He is twisting and turning so much that you now have poop on your fingers. When you have finished, you lay him down in the crib and hope he falls asleep. You even give him a bottle...Ten minutes later, he is crying to get out of the crib. You get him out of the crib, count three hours from now, and hope that he can nap at 3pm...
D: If you chose D, he sleeps for one hour and wakes up whining. You immediately change him and notice that he now has a bit of diaper rash. You change his diaper, but because it hurts, he twists and turns, and you now have poop on your fingers. You make sure to put some Vitamin A&D on his bum, and then put his diaper and pants back on. You hope that he can make it until 8 pm until his bedtime without being too crabby. Then you contemplate driving somewhere around 3 pm until he falls asleep.
It is now 3:30 pm. The baby has been acting crabby and sleepy for the last half an hour. You have tried to lay him down for a nap, but he WILL NOT go to sleep. However, your two-year-old fell asleep at 2:00 pm on the couch and is still sleeping. You now have a choice to make:
E. Do you strap the baby in the car, wake up the two-year-old and strap him in the car? Then do you drive around until the baby falls asleep?
F. Do you try to rock the baby to sleep?
E: If you chose E, you strap the baby in the car, shove a bottle in his hands, pick the two-year-old up from the couch and put him in the car. You tell your four-year-old to grab the tablet so he can play Angry Birds while you drive around. You have driven around for twenty minutes, and the baby has now stopped screaming, the two-year-old is complaining that the four-year-old gets to play on the tablet, and the four-year-old is hitting him. After you have driven for thirty minutes, the baby is now sleeping. Hurray! However, now the four-year-old has fallen asleep in his carseat. The two-year-old keeps asking for juice, so you drive home and leave the baby and four-year-old in the car with the doors open. You then spend the next forty-five minutes checking on the kids every five minutes.
F: If you chose F, you grab a bottle, pick up the baby, go to the family room, turn on the TV, and rock the baby until he finishes his milk and then he falls asleep. You start watching your favorite show. Thirty minutes later, it is over, but you don't want to wake the baby. Your kids are starting to complain that you get to watch TV, so you put a show on for them and hold the baby for a little bit longer.
That's pretty much how a lot of my days go. It's all a chain reaction to an earlier decision I made that day. I could keep going, but I think you got the point. My day so far has been choices B and D (Although, I'm pretty sure I didn't have wipes in the car...). I have no clue how the rest of the day will unfold! However, I rarely get all three sleeping at the same time...
