August was a hard month for me. Scott traveled a lot. And I was trying to get settled in to the rental and get the kids ready to go back to school.
This particular trip was to Alaska.
While Scott was on this trip, I got an email about a really good sale at Savannah's favorite clothing store in the mall. Against my better judgement, I decided to take the girls shopping. Josh was invited to go over to Liam's to hang out, which left me without a babysitter. I asked Aaron if he felt like he could handle being in charge of just Nate and Owen, and he said he could. So, I loaded up Kate, Gabe, Sara and Savannah and headed to the mall. Kate fell asleep on the drive there and wasn't happy to wake up when we got to the mall.
It just got worse from there. Savannah is not my favorite person to shop with. She is very picky and very indecisive. We went to three of four stores trying to find something she liked. Gabe got hungry and I had to mix up a bottle in the bathroom at the mall. Then I had to try and feed him and push him in his stroller all at the same time. Our final store, while Savannah was on trying clothes on, Gabe and Kate decided they were done.
We loaded up into the van and headed from home. But first we needed to swing by and get Josh from Liam's. Gabe screamed the whole drive home. And then he started puking from the crying. As we got close to Liam's, we were on a slower less busy road, and I asked Savannah to get Gabe out of his car seat. He was crying so hard he could barely catch his breath, and with his throwing up (and leaning back in his car seat), I was really worried he was going to choke or aspirate on his puke. Savannah refused to get him out, because he was covered in puke, and she hates the smell of that. Sara was in the front seat, so she couldn't get to him. I yelled at Savannah to please get him out, and again she refused. As he threw up again, I could hear him struggling to breathe, so I pulled the car over on a side road and jumped out and ran around the van to get to him. It scared Savannah enough that she had jumped into action, but she couldn't get the buckle undone. I threw open the van door and pulled Gabe out of his car seat and tipped him forward to get the puke out of his mouth and clear his airway. I yelled at Savannah because she was worried about the smell of puke, while her brother could die choking on that puke. I was so mad. And she was scared. She finally realized that it was serious. Some punk teenager rode past us on his bike and made some wise remark about me making too much noise, and I just stared him down. I got Gabe calmed enough to load back up in the car and drove to get Josh. I just had Sara hold him instead of putting him back in his car seat. He threw up a few more times before we finally got home. I went in the house, told everyone to go to bed, then I broke down crying. It was too much. Savannah came down after everyone was in bed, and apologized. I think that was the lowest of my lows after we moved. Scott called to say goodnight, and I couldn't even talk to him.
It was a really, really crappy day.
