Drive yourself insane tonight.

One hot summer day, oh gosh, a few years ago, I was watching my nephew while my brother in law went to an appointment. I had to drop him off at this appointment so I had 3 little boys to hang out with. Alone. Lucky me!

We had an hour or two to kill so I decided to take my youngest, who was still a toddler at the time, to get a haircut. Now taking this kid (total OCD-child, tantrum thrower extraordinaire) was no easy task, but he also had the wildest crazy hair/was at that homeless-person point that a haircut could be avoided no more. Now, it’s not what you think, not your typical mom walks in, booster chair and animal smock, get a lolly pop for being a good wittle boy in the end type of experience. We are talking the process is that the kid sits in my lap, we both get the aprons on us, and I hold him down and convince him that getting a haircut is a walk in the park/distract him. Mega wiggles/freak out. There could be tears or uncontrollable laughter, from either/both of us, depending on the day.

So we stop at some haircut place. And before we go in I turn to the two older boys and tell them if they are good kids (while I go through haircut-hell) I would take them immediately after for ice cream cones. You know, because bribery is one of the best tools in the parent tool kit yo. They promise to comply.

We go into this haircut establishment. The older boys with PSPs in hand sit in the waiting chairs with little halos. So adorable, gotta love ‘em. Psycho toddler and I are seated in the chair and wrapped up for haircutpocalypse.

Well, immediately following the start of the hair clippers the so called angel boys start bouncing around. Then they knock over some magazines on the waiting table. Then they get into a fight. Someone is crying, who depending on the 30-second interval, pretty much the entire time. During this joyous moment I am nicely (because I cannot yell at them in my condition/can’t do so in public, at least not the way I want to at the moment) trying to coax them to settle down, knock it off, PLEASE be good. Well, this ends with them almost breaking a window with a huge rock that the hair stylist was propping the door open with. It was hot that day and their AC was subpar at the supercutsjoint. These two kids tag teamed the boulder rock and moved it just a bit and dropped it with an embarrassing crash and bang to the glass door window.

Haircut event ends with toddler looking spiffy, me cleaning up their magazine mess, and the lady with an overly big tip for having to deal with the lot of us.
So we get back in the car and we still have time on our hands before bro-in-law in done. And they give me the puppy dog eyes and apologize. And being the pushover that I am I head over to Micky D’s for their ice cream cones. I know you think I am a total lame now, but don’t judge. I was a really young parent. I was doing what I could, aka I was (OK, still am) a pansy.

We pull up to the drive up menu and I order two vanilla ice cream cones and an order of French Fries for my baby, who (even still) doesn’t like ice cream. And the drive up lady replies, “I’m sorry; our ice cream machine is down today.We don’t have any.”

So we get little dude’s fries and we pull out. Right as we do my nephew bursts into tears. I try to console him saying we have popsicles at home and we can go get them. Or hey, maybe we can even stop at the store and buy some ice cream. Just don’t be sad. And he replies to me with the most serious face I have seen on him in his entire little life “Jesus broke the ice cream machine because me and T were bad kids!” Then my oldest started crying too.

It was awesome. The end.