Wednesday, December 20, 2006

One of those days

Today has just been one of those days where I wanted to lay down somewhere and cry. It started OK, Boy slept in until after 10... but I decided to take him out to the town centre to pick up some last minute stocking fillers. This was the start of a very bad day. I know this is a long post, and it's all whine whine whine, but I need to let it out. Thank you for your patience.

It's been foggy and cold the last two days, so we bundled up warmly and headed to the bus stop. Of course the bus is 20 minutes late and of course Elliot decides to cry for the full 20 minutes. When the bus does pull up, it's one of those old-fashioned dealies, where instead of a flat platform to step onto, there are two sets of steps divided by a railing. How the hell am I supposed to get my pushchair onto that?! (or a handicapped person or whoever?) I had to take Elliot out of the pushchair, get him to stand in one position without falling under the bus, fold my pushchair down, pick Elliot up in one arm, and drag the pushchair onto the bus with another. The only place in the bus for a folded pushchair is the former luggage rack, which means hauling the damn thing almost over my head. It's only a few minutes to the High Street, and already I'm in a foul mood. I struggle getting the pushchair out and luckily some nice man steps up to help me drag the thing onto the pavement.

Here's where the only good part comes in - Elliot falls asleep soon after, and takes an hour long nap. The bad part is, all the shops in the town seem to suffer from narrow aisles. I understand that it's Christmas, and that there are a lot of shoppers about, but really, do they all have to be so inconsiderate? Every shop I enter, there's some woman (or group of women) chatting in the aisles. And it's never the first 'excuse me' that gets their attention, it has to be the third or fourth. In the toy store, one little boy decides running into me and the pushchair repeatedly is acceptable behaviour. The mother watches and decides it is as well.

In one store things are so busy I forget to pick up my things on the way out, nobody seems to have what I'm looking for (a very last-minute Christmas present from Elliot to his rather miserable aunt and uncle, my sister-in-law and her husband) and my foot was stepped on on more than one occasion. I went into a shoe store looking for a new pair of boots, to find that their adult shoes are all located on the floor above us, with only a steep, narrow staircase to get up there. Isn't there some law which requires shops to cater for wheelchair-bound customers? Isn't it necessary for all shops to have a lift?

By this time I'm hungry, I'm cold, I'm tired and I am so fed up. I decide it's time to go home. Elliot wakes up just before the bus arrives, which is a good thing, because it happened to be the exact same bus I took to get there, with the same unfriendly design for pushchairs. At my busstop, I have a 10 minute hike up a hill - Elliot chooses this moment to start crying again, he wants to be held. He shrieks for the rest of the way home, and when I try to angle the front wheels into the house, the wheel gets stuck and I need to physically lift the pushchair (and screaming baby into the house, and instead manage to nearly topple the pushcair over as the drinks tray falls off.

Now Elliot is crying at the top of his lungs, and he doesn't stop. He's a grumpalump the whole rest of the afternoon. He doesn't want to sit in his highchair, he's upset as I put him on his changing table to change his nappy, he definately doesn't want to eat his lunch or play on his own. At bottle time, he decides he wants to drink in a big mouthful of milk and then spill it down his cheeks. He cries as I try to talk on the phone (I can't have a single moment of normalness chatting to a friend) I try all of Elliot's favourite games .. peekaboo, being chased around the room, stomach tickles - everything seems to make Boy cry. I finally realise what's wrong (god, am I slow!) Elliot has a fever. We cuddle on the sofa the rest of the afternoon and all seems well. Luckily N came home early and I got a much-needed break.

We started to watch holiday episodes of our favourite programmes. Tonight we watched the Thanksgiving episode in the first season of Felicity and if Els hadn't fallen asleep, we were going to watch the My So-Called Life Christmas episode. I needed that. I need something to happen to make it feel more like Christmas around here.

Oh! By the way, a big congratulations to Daniela! I am so happy for you!

(thanks to those who made it to the end, I know it wasn't easy!)

2 comments:

  1. Ugh. What an awful day. If there isn't a law that stores and busses have to be handicapped (or pushchair) accessible, it certainly should be.

    I hope that you and Boy have a better day tomorrow.

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