Multi-tasking Tantrums.

Since the daycare portion of Robby's school shut down, I have been left without somebody to help watch Timmy.  Working from home, I'm fortunate that the closure has had minimal impact on my daily life. I only lament the lack of childcare when I have an appointment that is not child friendly. Yesterday I had to go to the gynecologist, which is probably as child-unfriendly as it gets!

Timmy, probably echoing my anxiety, took the opportunity to throw one of his first true tantrums. Sitting in his stroller, surrounded by extremely pregnant women, he decided to end the silence of the waiting room. Without warning he threw his little head back against the back of his stroller seat, set his little jaw into a scowl and proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs. (He may be little, but I learned that size has no correlation to volume.)

As the mommies-to-be shifted awkwardly in their seats and attempted to feign smiles, I tried in vain to quiet down my little hellion. I offered goldfish crackers. He quieted for a moment, cracked a smile and threw it across the room. I watched helplessly as it bounced off a belly bump before ricocheting to the floor. I apologized profusely as I shamefully picked up the shattered remnants of my inadequate toddler bribe.

I can't be certain, but I'm fairly sure that my wait time for the doctor was minimized because of Hamlet's meltdown. Almost as soon as I threw the goldfish crumbs away, we were ushered into the examination room.  I wheeled the stroller into the corner, hoping that he would be content to look out the window during my exam. Timmy never noticed the window and spent the majority of his energy trying to remove and shred the paper gown I was clutching around my quasi-exposed body. 

Within minutes I was lying on the exam table with my feet in the stirrups. It felt surreal as I was quietly sang Itsy Bitsy Spider while feeding cookies to Timmy during my pelvic exam. I never knew that I could be that good at multi-tasking.