A Day in the Twilight Zone

The last three days have been chaotic. The Oracle is a contractor, and he's currently working in a government office. He spent the last three days working in an office quite a distance away, which meant being out the door at 5:50 a.m. to catch a train at a different station than his usual. Blech.


We're running one car which means I had to drive The Oracle to a train station twenty minutes away for his commute instead of the one four blocks away.


I confesss I'm a bad mama. When I drive The Oracle to the local station, I leave our children asleep in their beds because I am out and back in under seven minutes. (After this episode, I suspect The Oracle will need to walk to the station or take an earlier train once school starts in September.) The station he needed earlier this week is twenty minutes away, and that meant stuffing sleepy kids into the car for the ride. They were wide awake by the time we got home and were demanding breakfast.

Tuesday we dropped our car off for service and thankfully provided a rental for the day. The rental was a Grand Marquis and too small for a family of five. After lots of squabbling and elbow wrestling, we joyfully returned the rental and picked up our car yesterday after breakfast.

Swimming lessons were immediately afterward. Then it was time for lunch, and my in-laws picked up Precious Daughter and Mighty B. just before 1:00 because I had a to write a doctor's deposition at 2:00. I scurried off with Kryptonite to the sitter's house.

At the sitter's house, I knock on the door. No answer. I knock on the door again, and no response. I call her number, thinking she might be upstairs and not hearing me, and no answer.

Now what?

My brain is spinning. Normally, the sitter picks up her son at 12:30, but she's home by now. Something must've held her up, but I can't wait any more. Hoping she was okay, I load Kryptonite back into the car, and I start heading to the job which is only a ten-minute drive away. I called my firm but got no answer, instead leaving her a message with my dilemma.

I tried calling the attorney's office and got a non-answer from their staff. I really had no choice anyway, because the job was due to start in twenty minutes.

I arrive at the doc's office with Kryptonite and meet opposing counsel in the parking lot. I explained my problem and asked her opinion on having a five-month-old baby present during the deposition. She was very open to it (thank Heaven) and began sharing some of her experiences with last-minute Take Your Kid to Work days.

When plaintiff's counsel arrived, he marveled over Kryptonite and compared her to his older baby. When he learned she was mine and present for the day's work, he took it in stride.

The third Seven to pop up on the slot machine was the doc himself. His is a family practice, he loves pediatrics, and offered to hold Kryptonite while I worked. Jackpot!

Opposing Counsel realizes she doesn't have half of her documents for the day's dep, and steps out to arrange a fax from her secretary to the doctor's office.

Kryptonite awakens, and the doc reaches out to take her. As I lift her out of the carrier I notice a familiar unpleasant odor. You have GOT to be kidding! Ah well. At least someone else is tied up with a fax machine, and I'm not the sole reason for delay. I take her out to the car for a quick change. Naturally, her diaper was a thoroughly nasty blowout. The kid had poop under her arms, for crying out loud! At least I had a change of clothes for her.

As I'm locking the car, I spy the baby sling I'd just purchased through eBay on the seat. I had it at the pool with me that morning. I stuffed the sling in my purse and returned to the doc's offfice.

Returning to my seat, I stuffed Kryptonite into the sling. She seemed pretty content and we began the deposition. About fifteen minutes into it, she started to crab. Ter-ri-fic. I start twisting back and forth on the seat of my office chair, but she isn't buying it. When the attorneys went off the record for another matter, I passed Kryptonite off to an office worker who eagerly offered her services earlier. I initially worried that the doc would be annoyed with his staffer taking the next hour off to fart around with the court reporter's kid, but it was better than having her squawking every thirty seconds and interrupting things.

An hour later, I can hear Kryptonite screaming. She is pissed. She wants her mama, but what can I do? I'm in the middle of a job. A short while later, the staffer comes in and asks if I have a bottle.

Yeah, I have a bottle and I have formula in the car, but I know full well that Kryptonite won't take it. She doesn't like the formula. She likes her milk, um, directly from the source. She'll take a bottle containing stuff from mom's dairy bar, but she doesn't like formula. I didn't have anything freshl bottled with me. I wasn't anticipating this job to take that long, and Kryptonite ate at 12:30.

Whatever. Kryptonite wasn't going to need to eat until 4:30 or so, but I made the bottle anyway. I figured it would give the staffer something to try. Kryptonite wanted her mama. The End.

We resume the deposition, and it takes for-ev-er. I can hear Kryptonite crabbing off and on, and we're perpetually interrupted with off-the-record discussions having nothing to do with my baby. At one point, a thunderstorm cracked open right over our heads, nearly shaking us all out of our chairs. The 41-year-old doc jokes that he thought he might have a second heart attack. NOT FUNNY!!!!

We didn't finish until 4:45.

The race was on! I had to get The Oracle from the train station, the kids from my in-laws, Precious Daughter to her summer stock practice by 6:00, and NONE of that was going to happen on time. It was pouring buckets and I could barely see. I made a batch of phone calls, the results of which were that nothing was going to be completed on time, but we eventually got everyone home safe and sound, and things were back to semi-normal.

I'm glad that's over!

Oh. The sitter? She just never got the message I left. I'm annoyed, but I'm glad she's okay.