All that, and we get a shot too

Do you ever have those moments when you hear yourself being totally irrational, and yet you just can't manage to stop it? It's like a movie, where you see the killer closing in on the door and you want to tell the innocent coed to RUN while there's still time!

Today we had one of those moments.

I took the kids to get flu shots (I know: thimerisol/GBS/toxins/unreliable/etc. We get them anyway. The horror!). They told us it would be a 15 minute wait, which was fine. We had lots of time before we were supposed to meet friends at the park at 10am. We sat down in the waiting room very patiently. After forty-five minutes, countless songs and memorized stories and a few escalating protests, I politely asked how much longer it would be, pointing out that they had promised only 15 minutes. "Soon," they told me. So we sat back down. I tried to call my friend to give her an update, only to find my cell phone was dead. Surely we'd still be there close to on time. Then again, they were going with the Biblical meaning of 'soon.' After another twenty-five minutes (don't ask me how we got through that with no food and no books and clear dissatisfaction in the catalog of my memory of children's songs and stories), I went back up to the desk, two unhappy but rightfully so kids in tow. The girl at the front asked if we got our shots yet, and I told her that we had not, and as a result I was about to lose it.

Then I lost it.

I found myself crying, pounding the counter, and calling for someone in management to hear my complaints. In my heart, I knew there was very little that they could do, so when she came out, heard my statement, and apologized without actually being able to change anything, I just felt all the more ridiculous. How could I have let myself turn into the child? I'd just thrown a regular tantrum, and received the same response I give to my kids all the time: I'm very sorry, but there's nothing I can do about it.

To tell you the truth, that answer really sucks.

And it sucks to feel like after all these years, after thinking I was grown-up enough to be a mom, that there's a little toddler in there still. I'd like to hope it happens to the best of us, but maybe it's really that I'm just not one of the best. In any case, I feel very human today, and thinking thankfully that God loves me just as I love my kids, even when they're being irrational and ridiculous.

In the end, we got our flu shots, albeit with a small dose of shame. My friend had canceled our playdate--if only my phone had been charged, I would have had the message at a more useful time--and we went shopping instead. The kids got to pick something fun (police car and baby--of course) and I bought myself three kinds of candy for gingerbread house making. By the time we left the store, I was singing Christmas carols to the kids and talking about how much I love the holiday season. So there's some good to having a little toddler lurking inside: she was pretty easily distracted. God bless those short memories.