And the Moral to the Story Is . . .

- a post by Jeanna Mason Stay

Today I’ve got an experience that happened yesterday. Your job is to decide what life lesson I should learn from it—or how I can pull my favorite trick and turn it into a gospel/motherhood/writer metaphor.

I have this recipe for a yummy curry that I don’t make often because I manage to dirty every dish in the house when I make it. Well, yesterday, while I was making it, my daughters asked me for an apple. So I cut it in half and sent them off to eat it.

I made the curry. I made the rice. I sat down to take a break while it simmered because I was pooped (and because my kitchen was a mess, and I was trying to get up the oomph to clean it). While I was sitting on the couch, my younger daughter came to me and told me her ear hurt. I asked why, and she said it had a seed in it.

Uh-oh.

It turned out that she had stuck an apple seed in her ear. I was going to try to tweeze it out, but it was really, really far and I didn’t want to make it worse.

I am actually quite grateful that this is the first time I’ve ever felt the need to take her to urgent care. So we piled all of us together (both daughters and the hubby too, because nothing says “family fun time” like hanging out in a doctor’s office) and drove to urgent care. Where we proceeded to wait. And wait and wait and wait. Then we got called back into the little exam rooms. Where we waited some more.

(Meanwhile, by the way, I’d remembered to turn off the stove but not to put the food away.)

The hubby had to head off to scouts, eventually, leaving me with the two girls (although he brought us Wendy’s for dinner—complete with the toys that come in the kids’ meals, so that was good for about fifteen minutes of entertainment). We continued to wait. And then wait some more. About two and a half hours into our wait (seriously), my pregnant body decided it needed to pee. I took me and the two girls to the bathroom. Apparently the doctor chose those three minutes to come see us. When we weren’t there, she moved on to the next patient.

Another half hour passed, and the hubby came back with donuts (bless him!). By now we were all tired. We’d colored, watched tv, played a lot of charades and a few rounds of “I spy.” It was past the girls’ bedtime. Heck, it was past my bedtime!

And then my hubby looked into my daughter’s ear (which, by the way, wasn’t particularly hurting a lot, so she was fairly cheerful this whole time). And he could see the seed. It had worked its way almost all the way out. If I’d had tweezers on hand, I could have grabbed it then. Apparently all it really needed was four hours of waiting in urgent care.

Five minutes later, the doctor arrived.

One minute later, the seed was out.

Three minutes after that, my daughter was screaming like a banshee because the doctor decided to check the other ear to make sure there wasn’t a seed there too. When the doctor saw something that looked weird, she probed to see it if was wax or another seed. This apparently was not pleasant.

Another many minutes of screaming and probing, and finally the ordeal was over. We were all exhausted. At least one of us was crying (I reserve the right not to comment on whether or not I was). We had an early morning and a long day planned the next day. I was feeling ridiculous for the amount of time we’d spent on this when, in the end, it was a procedure I could have done. I was also feeling blessed that the seed worked itself out. And frustrated about the second ear. And tired. And . . . lots of stuff. (Did I mention I’m pregnant? So yes, I’m feeling lots of stuff all the time, and most of it is ridiculous.)

Back home, as fast as we could. Where I realized I’d left the curry out. But it didn’t have any meat, so I thought maybe it would be fine (turns out the FDA recommends no longer than two hours out of the fridge, but I’m still deciding if I’m going to eat it or not).

To bed. Only to realize, at 10 p.m., that today (Thursday) is my MMW day and I had nothing, no energy, and no time to get it done (given that I was valuing my sleep and sanity). Sigh.

So it’s your turn now. Life lessons? Metaphors? What should I get from this whole fiasco?