A Back-To-School Outing With Triplets in Tow

For some reason or another, I thought it would be a good idea to take my eldest and have his eyes checked (at the recommendation of his pediatrician) and have his hair cut today. These seem like normal, everyday and easy tasks, but for us, nothing is ever easy!

I remembered to call yesterday and set up his eye appointment which went swimmingly well. I did forget to ask where the office was located, not realizing that there were more than one optical places in the mall down the street. Ah well, it could have been worse. At least I knew the name of the doctor the appointment was with-that was a start (I know it sounds a bit odd, but the referral was made by phone and no further information was given other than the name and phone number!)

I started about four hours early planning this morning exactly how things should happen for the day. I even was able to get the triplets down for the nap at the right time (lately it's been touch & go because of the teething.)

Bregon got up at a decent hour (no small feat for a tween-ager who is in the midst of his last week before school starting) and he even got dressed without any prodding. He even chose what appeared to be clean clothes to wear (sometimes an issue when dealing with a tween who just hasn't adjusted to the teen-aged world of deodorant and smelly-good products!)

I managed to get all of my make-up on and my hair fixed to where I could at least live with it once the triplets decided to run tiny sticky fingers through it (as of late its a trend!) I even had their lunch ready to go as they were waking up. I remembered to put their laundry into the dryer and even had three tiny clean outfits ready for when they woke up from their nap!

Of course once the babies began to stir, our phone started ringing. I very stupidly answered it. I have know idea what I was thinking at the time. It was about twelve by this point! Only two hours to get everyone diapered, dressed, fed and the car loaded! Eventually I was able to get the kids dressed and into their chairs with a little help from big brother.

While the babies had lunch, Bregon and I took turns fending off the cats and the dog who thought that it might be their lucky day for tasty treats (the babies have a habit of trying to share meals) while I made our usual bottle of apple juice mixed with water (its a 36 oz plastic apple juice container that I take EVERYWHERE with us.) I packed the blue insulated bag with sippy cups and juice, grabbed the teddy grahams, and headed for the car, stroller in tow.

I am not sure how, but we managed to actually get out of the house in our entirety, without the dog trying to tag along, and all three kitty cats still INSIDE the house before ten till one. As I pulled out of the driveway to head for the mall which is all of three minutes away or less, my cell phone rang.

I feel really bad having to cut that conversation short. I really appreciate the help of the person to whom I was speaking to, but I am just not that co-ordinated enough to be able to successfully unload the babies from their car seats into that stroller with only one hand free! However, I did manage to unload and set up the stroller and pack the stroller bag one handed- that wasn't too shabby if I do say so myself!

Once we actually got into the mall, I discovered that the location of the eye doctor was NOT where I had thought it was. As luck would have it, I chose the wrong entrance and ended up at the competitor's office on the opposite end of the mall. Lucky for us, we were early enough to still make it in time for our appointment.

We actually did find the right place and in time too. The problem was, the very tiny waiting area was very full with only one chair free. I don't mind standing, but because all of the seats were basically filled, I wasn't able to fit the stroller into the actual office and was forced to leave it in half in the doorway with over half of it sticking out into the mall in the way of the mall walker zone.

The people waiting were NOT every sympathetic to our plight at all. In fact, we were drawing quite a few stares. I grabbed the sign-in sheet, tried to quickly fill it out (and still do it the right way) and managed to confirm with the receptionist lady that we were there for our appointment, but that we may have to wait outside in the mall on the bench by the doorway because we could not fit inside the waiting area.

Everyone just kept staring at us. I tried to say excuse me, and ask if they would mind at least standing up for a second so that I could get my limo-sized stroller into the actual office and park it in the walk-way into the actual optical store. They just all continued to stare at us as if I was speaking some foreign language.

I finally gave up trying to go in through the actual entrance to the waiting area, and opted to back the stroller out of the doorway, and into the actual store. The people shopping in the actual store were all very nice and stepped out of the way so that I could maneuver past them without mowing anybody down (did I mention that I cannot drive that thing very well?)

Maybe the difference between the staring people who were sitting and the nice ones who were standing is that the sitting ones felt safe in their chairs and the standing ones were afraid of being mowed down by the crazy lady with the triplets! Who knows.

Of course my luck ran out about the time I was able to get the stroller parked and semi out of the way of the basic doctor office flow of traffic. Kian had apparently grown quite bored with his stroller toy and his juice and had taken to trying to grab as much as Kai's hair as he could manage (Kai's barely has any hair).

Kai was busy trying not to screech in pain while trying to get my attention. Vivie was a good baby girl and just sat and had her juice and stared back at all the people who had been so busily staring at her from their seats. Bregon alternated between fetching flying sippy cups and picking up tossed toys and teddy grahams off of the floor while nervously awaiting his name to be called.

Kian was so awful about hair pulling, I ended up having to switch he and Kai so that Kai would have a clear shot at Kian's nice rather shaggy blond hair (he actually managed to eschew pulling it somehow even though nobody would have blamed him much if he had tried!) Kian of course howled over the punishment and NOTHING made him feel any better.

Bregon meanwhile had been called back to have his eyes numbed and dilated. That poor patient lady would get to where she was almost able to get those drops into his eyes and he would pull away and say, "Nope! I'm just not ready yet!" It took her a bit to get those drops in too, poor dear.

As luck would have it, Bregon is just a tad bit near-sighted. Basically it was my choice over whether or not to go ahead and get the glasses or not. Last time, we bypassed them and I just felt we should give them a go and see if it helps him out in school. Time will tell!

In the meantime, we had to pick out frames. Yes, Kian still howled and everyone else was busy lobbing sippy cups and dragon-fly toys and dinosaur toys everywhere in some attempt to make new friends by enticing innocent passer's by to pick up the items and play the "Guess which baby this object belongs to game!"

Meanwhile, Bregon set out to try on every rather large set of frames he could find. Thankfully, this very nice English-sounding lady took pity on our plight and ran over to help him make a decision (did I mention we are not very good with decision making-it's an ADHD thing.) But, tomorrow we should have glasses!!!!!

Next, I got the bright idea that we should cut his hair. It has gotten very long. In fact, it is so long, that he looks like someone from the '70's. Lucky for us, he was in a quick decision making mode and was able to convey to the stylist exactly what he wanted and in under three minutes. He wanted to look like the new Dr. Who. Of course the poor lady hadn't a clue who or what that was!

The hair book thankfully had a picture that would suffice for her to be able to cut all of his hair off and he now is sporting an actual haircut, not just a trim grown out over months and months of cultivation!

Kian screamed most of the way through the haircut too, in spite of a very nice lady talking to him and trying to make him feel better. The only remedy for Kian seemed to be us leaving the mall entirely.

Once we got home, the babies all were very happy to be finally in their play-yard. They immediately set about tossing as many of the toys as they could outside of it. Over all, the day went rather well. We were on time to our appointment in spite of the odds and were even able to fit in an extra task as well!