You know it’s a Monday when you realize the highlight of your day is something that would have made you cry when you graduated college or high school or whenever the world was still was still your oyster and you still dreamed of starry eyed abandon. Because in no playbook or commencement address or year book platitudes was it a possibility of your toddler peeing into a plastic bag the bright spot in your day. And yet, there I was. All I wanted was a little bit of pee in a bag and I could call the day good. At some point in time I will ask, where did it go off the rails? But at this point in time, I’m just trying to hold on to the rails.

My first mistake was setting the alarm in the anticipation of an early morning run. Cinco got wind of that and slept as noisily as humanly possible. Punctuated by moments of intense silence which had convinced me that she had died several times. This left me staring at the clock thinking about how my alarm would go off in fifteen minutes. Then I slept through it. Always the way to start the day.

On my Monday list to do was calling the doctor about X-Man. Again. This time concerning his addiction to water and extensive consumption of dihydrogen monoxide. And of course the only solution was for me to bring all five into the doctor’s office, or as the children call it….home.

They attached a little bag to his manhood and said to wait for him to fill it. It shouldn’t have been a problem; I had just finished describing how often he filled a diaper. And considering how much he was drinking, we most likely had a five minute wait. But in the back of my head I was thinking about our various potty training experiences. Basically, X-Man can watch two full movies while sitting on the potty and do exactly jack. He will then walk five steps and pee on the carpet. The boy has a bladder of steal when he feels like it.

He felt like it. I drove all over the county, wandered some stores, went to soccer practice, took the boy to Starbucks. He emptied every sippy cup in the car and downed some old coffee as well. I had

reached the point of willingness to pay the caffeine piper just to get the stupid sample. To no avail.

Every time I took off his diaper to check the little bag stuck to his skin, X-Man would apprise me of the situation “uhuh pee pees.” Say what you want kid, you are clearly ready to potty train.  Gestated happily demonstrated three different times what exactly it was I was looking for. The third time, she did so with such gusto it was clear that she had forgotten that Baby had removed the wipes from the car, because those were clearly the only wipes anywhere to bring to the father figure earlier that day, and then did not put them back. So not only “uhuh pee pees” but also “uhuh wipes” with a whole lot of “yep poop.”

And so that’s how I came to be sitting on the floor of a bathroom in the doctor’s office, running water in the sink, watching the minutes tick away  until closing time for the lab. X-Man, sans pants, was running back and forth, maximizing the reverberation the room allowed. To Mac’s growing consternation, no one was understanding his explanation of things “His body is not broken, he’s walking just fine. The only thing broken about him is his crying and he’s not even crying right now.” Cinco demonstrated her abilities to empty her body orally as well.  Baby just looked irritated and said “Why are we still here?”

To add insult to injury, I’m pretty sure that this is actually all an ear/nose/ throat issue and this whole test will indicate that everything is normal. That is, provided I can actually get a sample, and get that sample back to the lab within an hour. While hauling five kids.

  On a side note, at the park, while waiting for Baba to finish soccer practice, I saw a mother whose gestating cinco came with a matching seis. I think my Monday was probably better than hers.