A Parenting Mistake, $75, and No Gas…

Today was a crazy day. It was one of those parenting days when you put the kids to bed and just crash; thankful you’ve made it through another day.

I’ll spare you the drama that happened this morning and just skip to this afternoon’s fun where we got to spend an unplanned $75 and I made a mistake that every parent tries to avoid.

We’ve been working on a retaining wall in our backyard for what seems like forever. My husband took a bobcat, took a TON of dirt out of the hill in the backyard. So now we have a huge pile of dirt in our yard that is slowly disappearing as people come and take it away for us.

This weekend as my husband worked on the wall my oldest two children dug a hole in that pile of dirt. They played fort in it, but really just had fun digging it. Then my oldest got the idea to jump in the hole. Minutes later he’s inside lying on the couch complaining about his ankle. This morning he seemed worse and couldn’t put weight on it so off to the doctor we go.

X-rays were taken and there was no evidence of a break. But due to pain when one of his growth plates was pressed on the doctor recommended a short leg walking cast for two weeks.

Did I mention I was at the doctor’s office with all three of my kids? Alone?

So they proceed to put on the cast when the littlest one (20 months old) needs a diaper change. Oh, and surprise surprise, in the midst of the hectic day I hadn’t checked to make sure the diaper bag was actually stocked with diapers. And as luck would have it our “back-up stash” in the truck for emergencies was out. No clean diapers. And a stinky diaper that needed changing. What’s a mom to do? Well, to spare us all any suffering I changed the diaper and put him back in his pants “sans diaper” hoping for the best.

Back to my oldest son. He couldn’t walk well in the first cast so they cut it off and put another one on. He’s doing just fine and is walking around on the cast pretty well. I’ve very thankful for that.

$10 co-pay
$40 for a waterproof cast
$25 for a special shoe

I must say that I feel extremely blessed that $75 was all we had to pay for today. If we hadn’t upgraded to the waterproof cast our total would have only been $35 for a regular cast. My husband’s company has an excellent health insurance plan so I am absolutely counting my blessings there.

After we left the doctor’s office and drove away we came to a red light. I took the minute rest to stop and reflect. I had made it through the day, everyone was fine and we were almost home.

That’s when the truck beeped as the gas tank hit “E”.

Sigh. Did I mention gas is up to $3.16? I think I need to get one of these…