A colleague today asked me how was my break, and I couldn’t help but laugh as I thought back to a singular moment that perfectly described my time home with the girls over the past 2 weeks.  It was two days before Christmas Eve, my wife was still working and I’d been home with the girls solo while grandma was preparing to head to B-more to spend Christmas with the fam up there.  I wasn’t trying to be ambitious.  In the past I have been known to plan elaborate trips to various places, the aquarium, the zoo, or last year to Lego World while on extended breaks.  I could get away with it, with just the two girls. Especially as they got older, it was easier to navigate the family bathrooms (or mens restrooms, because let’s face it, there aren’t that many family bathrooms out there), and other logistical details of being a dad out and about with his two young daughters.  But now, with an infant in tow as well, like i said, I wasn’t trying to be a hero.  It was rainy, I figured that we would just hunker down and camp out at the house during the daytime and if/when I decided to venture outside, it would only happen once my wife arrived back home from seeing patients.

Well, as chance would have it, she needed me to pick up a ham.  Not bad, I thought.  I can handle this.  As a matter of fact, I figured we might tack on another errand (which now i totally can’t remember, seeing as how we never made it to our second destination…spoiler alert).  Since it was expected to rain again, I dressed the oldest two in rain gear, boots, raincoats, the whole 9.  After packing the diaper bag, we piled into the minivan and set off for the store.

Funny thing about rain…when it rains, sometimes it pours.  We found ourselves outside the store as it began to drizzle, fortunately we made it inside relatively unscathed with our unbrellas, but I could tell that it was getting heavier.  Once inside the real show began.  Olivia took one long look at the line and started to wander…Riley (my oldest) looked up at me and promptly informed me that she needed to go the bathroom, and London, who to this point had been nice and quiet started crying.  Well, actually screaming is more like it.  Imagine the scene, young dad, getting an infant out of her stroller/carseat, holding onto the hands of two other girls, standing in a long line that wrapped to the door.  Ladies kept commenting to me, “oh she’s so cute, she just misses her mommy” or “wow, 3 girls huh?”  By the time we got to the register, I felt like my girls were best friends with everyone in the place given how much they’d made the rounds.  As we made our way to the door, Riley reminded me she still needed to potty and couldn’t hold it, Olivia was noticing that it was raining really hard outside, and London who was draped across my shoulder had started back up crying.  Meanwhile our audience was probably staring at me wondering how I was going to make it back to the van, with a ham, turkey, empty stroller (minus the baby on my shoulder), and two girls and don’t forget about the monsoon outside…

That moment right there, that’s what daddies live for though right?  lol.  The frantic dash to the van in the rain, racing home to rescue a kid’s bladder, the end of the baby siren, and the chance to live another day to tell the story.

SDW3