Author’s note: Please know that this post is riddled with hyperbole. That said, all of these terrible decisions were actually made in the span of 48 hours. 

Saturday morning. 

I wake Gabby up for dance at 6:30 so she can eat before we go. As usual, she hardly eats because she’s so excited for dance “wessons,” so I just dress her and hit the road.

Dance was FANTASTIC! All new songs – a complete refresh. The class was packed, so Gabby was semi-crazy with her need to show off, but she was having so much fun I wasn’t mad about it.

After class I check my phone and the hubs made an appointment for the pediatrician to look at Gabby’s skin rash.

A Saturday appointment! I refuse to be late for anything. Too bad the hubs made the appointment for 45 minutes after dance ends (and it is at minimum 30 minutes from home). I took as many shortcuts as I could to get there on time.

I pull into the back entry of the doctors office and immediately realize it was a bad idea. The parking lot behind the building that I normally cut through to get to the front parking lot was a lumpy, dangerous sheet of ice. I should have just backed out and drove around the corner. I didn’t.

Instead, I headed to the narrow passage between the doctor’s office and the abandoned garage next door.

What I saw was not good: It hadn’t been plowed through all the way. There was a bump about 6 inches high of snow across the whole passageway. It was really narrow. I wasn’t sure if I could fit my giant white minivan through it safely. However, this was a Saturday pediatrician appointment and I was NOT going to be late. By this time, it would have been far too unsafe to try to back my way out of the driveway.

I hold my breath and hit the gas.

I wasn’t going anywhere. The ground was ice beneath me and now I am stuck in the snow. I rock the van backwards and forwards. I try turning the wheels in different directions. I try to gun it in reverse. My face is getting hotter and hotter and my heart is racing. What the hell did I do?!?!

We were still not late for the appointment, so I figured the best thing to do would be to at least make the appointment. I try opening my door. No dice. The snow is packed up against the driver’s side of the car. Next-best option: climb over the console and exit the passenger’s door… into a 4-foot high pile of snow. I open Gabby’s door and pull her out, climb over the snow pile (and apparent BUSH I didn’t see in said snow pile), and we go inside.

The receptionist checks us in and before we sit down I causually say, “If anyone is concerned about the van stuck in between the buildings, that would be me. I will get it out of there after the appointment.” The ladies all look at me, then out the window, then back at each other in horror. “Um, ok… Sorry about that. We have some shovels you can borrow,” was her response.

The appointment happens and is mostly a blur, other than the doctor being so apologetic that he offers to meet me outside to see if he can’t help me get the van out of there.

As his waiting room full of patients glares hatefully at me out the window while the doctor futilely tries to free my van from its icy prison, the humiliation just tells him I will call a friend and to please go back inside.

So I text my friends who live right down the street with a request to bring a shovel. This is what they saw upon their arrival:

The barrage of quizzical faces and “how?!?”s that followed were soon met with frantic (yet not very helpful) attempts to free my beastwagon from its almost certain fate to live in this snow pile until the snow melts in June. We could not get it out. Thankfully, K always seems to “know a guy” and within 10 minutes, a tow truck and a very nice man shaking his head at me arrived. He pulled my van out of that snow pile and we all went on our merry (but very embarrassed) ways.

The rest of the day passed without incident.

Sunday. Gabby’s behavior was off-the-charts awful all day, but in her defense she was kind of cooped up. I just remember yelling a lot and crying a lot because I can’t get through to her. I was supposed to go to a baby shower that day (how do you like that foreshadowing???) and was planning on bringing Gabby with me. Needless to say, I wasn’t thrilled. The hubs let her play outside for a while and I was finally able to shower and relax. A while later, they came inside.

“Mama! Wook!” She cried excitedly before she was even in the door. “Mama, I found a wock!” It was a pretty cool rock. It was flat as a penny and triangular. It almost looked like a shark’s tooth. I admired it and brought her inside to warm up.

We settled in on the couch for a bit and suddenly…

Gabby: My rock!
Me: What happened?
Gabby: My rock!
Me: Where is it? did you drop it?
Gabby: It’s in my nose!

I felt around on the outside of her nose. The rock was so flat that I couldn’t push it out from the outside. I grabbed the Hubs’ headlamp and a pair of tweezers and set him to work. No dice. She had pushed it so far up her nose that there was no way we were getting it out ourselves.

Off to the emergency room we drove. With Gabby in the back whimpering and saying, “Maybe it’ll just take five minutes, Mommy,” and me beseeching her to keep her fingers out of her nose. Finally, we arrived… dozens of coloring pages later, we were sent upstairs to the urgent care floor where Gabby was swaddled up like a burrito and the resident used a catheter with a balloon on the end to push the rock out from the inside. Gabby got an ice pop for being so good. I grew sixteen more grey hairs.

I did keep the rock 🙂