Happy Valentine's Day

So we took a little trip over the weekend to visit Marble Falls, a beautiful little town about four hours from where we live. (Before you start guffawing with remembrance about your own family trips and thinking, "Ha ha! Suckers! They sabotaged their own Valentine's Day weekend with a kids-included hotel stay," let me say this: our kids are pretty good road-trippers. They enjoy adventures and we don't have more than our fair share of Sesame Street DVD marathons, chicken nugget fights, and Houdini-esque attempts to escape from carseat bondage.) We went to Marble Falls to meet a potential business associate, whom we had only spoken to by phone and were eager to meet. We make the drive and arrive at his office looking predictably rumpled and fast food-stained, but still passable. We meet this lovely man and walk into his lovelier office; the doctor, being the gentleman that he is, asks if any of us need to use the bathroom. We accept. (Yes, this is another bathroom story.) As he is pointing me through the lobby to the restroom, Judsen grabs his shorts and announces, "I have to pee." I look down to see the legs of his jeans are soaked. Apparently he's telling the truth. So I smile, grab Judsen's hand, and rush him into the bathroom. Per mine and Josh's decision to not harass Judsen about potty mistakes (described in the previous post), I calmly start to get him cleaned up. While I am doing so, I realize that somehow he has also managed to drench his shirt. "Judsen, is this wet because of pee?" "Yep." (Don't ask me how this happened. You'd think that the laws of physics would prevent bodily fluids, like water in the natural world, from flowing upstream, but clearly, as mothers know, this is never the case.) So I open the bathroom door, return to the lobby, and explain to Josh that I will be running to the car to get Judsen some new clothes. I gather the new outfit, head back into the office and much to my horror, discover a large puddle in the lobby where Judsen had been standing when he announced he had to urinate. At this point, Judsen is still wet and awaiting me in the bathroom, Felicity is upset because I have left the building without her and her own diaper is so soggy it's grazing her knees, Josh and the doc are in the middle of an important discussion that I should really be paying attention to, and now a small tributary of the Thames is running through the doctor's beautiful Texas tile lobby; we have been in the building and in company of the good doctor for less than five minutes. Thankfully (aren't I good for finding something to be thankful for under these circumstances?!) it appeared that Josh and the doc hadn't noticed the urine on the floor. So, I grabbed Felicity and ran for the bathroom, praying that the guys would continue not to notice. We got Judsen dressed and Felicity changed and headed nonchalantly for the lobby. As we arrived, I apologized for the running around and the doctor good-naturedly said it was no big deal, he had three kids and completely understood. The docs go back to their conversation, so moving as discreetly as I can, I bend over and begin to sop up the puddle with an army of baby wipes; of course, Josh decides that this would be a good time for all of us to take a tour of the office and all the attention turns toward me to see if I accept. So I stand up, scoop the baby wipes, hopefully the last of the pee, and my remaining scraps of dignity off the floor, and decide not to say anything further about the incident if they don't.  We complete the tour, which consists of the men walking briskly in front, nodding approvingly at things, and me scrambling to keep the kids together and discourage them from picking up numerous unidentifiable, but important-looking metal objects from each of the doctor's operatories (the room in which he works on patients). Judsen (holding up something):"Mom, can I have this? What is it?" Felicity (holding up something else): "Ba!!" (meaning, "Mom, can I have this? What is it?") Me: Gasp. "No! What is that? Where did you even find it?? Please put it down and don't touch anything else." As the tour ends, we adults all sit on comfortable couches to discuss business, and the kids proceed to run back and forth across the lobby, shrieking like Apache warriors. After a patient moment, I try gently explaining to them that I need them to be a bit quieter. This was as successful as if I'd done the same with actual Apache warriors. So finally the kids and I leave the building and leave Josh and the doc to discuss business. As we get outside and the kids run around in the parking lot, I mentally review the last 20 minutes, from the wet-shorts initial meeting to the Red Sea episode to our loud exit from the building, and decide that if this business relationship gets off the ground, it will truly be a miracle.
But, maybe Josh was able to repair the quick and dirty damage we inflicted. We'll see. He's a smooth talker, at least smooth enough to convince me to marry him. I'm glad he talked me into it and that he's been my valentine for the last seven years. Happy Valentine's Day to us and to you.