Today, I felt the need to tell this story of true and honest mom failure. It was a literal hot mess and I don’t know why I ever attempt to do anything with grace and tact.

So here’s the deal. Why is taking a baby somewhere in the rain a total f-ing shit show? As in, I would rather just stay home but unfortunately not wanting to get out in the rain is not an acceptable excuse to skip your child’s doctor’s appointment.

Sidebar: Yesterday Henry told me and my husband he never wanted to go anywhere again. When we asked why, he simply said, “November”. I have never felt closer to my child than I did at that moment.

Back to my taking my kid out in the rain ordeal. It doesn’t sound like it could possibly be that catastrophic, right? But it was.

Last week, Baby Simon had a pediatrician appointment and it was raining buckets. The appointment was early in the morning so I had to go straight to work afterward.

I had to choose my outfit carefully. No heels. The parking lots were turning into rivers. No long pants, the bottom of them would get soaked and smell horrible. So I decided on a dress, tights and some boots.

I pulled into the parking lot at the pediatrician’s office and turned my car off. It was raining so hard I could barely see. I opened my door and awkwardly popped my umbrella out the car door, trying not to hit the car next to me while also attempting to maintain my straightened hair.

I slid awkwardly out of my seat because I suck at parking and was a couple inches too close to the vehicle next to me. I wedged myself to the back seat to get Simon. I have to use two hands to get his carrier out of the car, so I had to try and balance the umbrella between my chin and on the top of my car so I could use both hands to get the carrier unlatched.

The umbrella fell to the ground. I said fuck it, unlatched his carrier and covered it with a blanket and got him out of the car. The entire time it rained on my no longer straight hair.

My umbrella landed upside down so when I did pick it up and I put it over my head it dumped dirty parking lot water on me. I was probably glowing from motor oil.

I limped to the front entrance of the pediatrician’s office because with the rain and me being pissed off, it felt like I was carrying an elephant around in the baby carrier. When I got inside the office, I looked for one of those bags where you put your wet umbrella, but there were none. Instead I just let that umbrella drip as I signed him in. Maybe they were hoping someone would slip so they could get an extra patient on the books.

After his appointment, I headed back outside. It was still raining buckets. I limped back to my car with my elephant sized toddler that is probably too large to actually still be in a carrier. Fortunately, the car that had parked next to me had just pulled out.

Hooray! I wouldn’t have to worry about scratching their car because of my shoddy parking job.

Unfortunately, a minivan decided to pull up and wait for me to put my large baby in the back of my SUV in the pouring rain because they wanted to give me extreme anxiety and hate my life more than I already did.

I once again attempted to awkwardly prop the umbrella between my body and the top of the car while placing Simon’s carrier in the backseat. Somehow between the ground and my grunting to thrust his carrier into the back of the car, his foot got stuck in the bottom hem of my dress. My dress was pretty much up to my chest before I felt the breeze and rain on my skin. My beautiful, stretch-marked, saggy, double c-section stomach skin.

This is a true apology to everyone that got a free show that day. I know it wasn’t pretty.

I climbed back into the front seat as quickly as possible because the maroon Honda Odyssey gave zero fucks that I was in distress and continued to wait on me. I tried to close my umbrella out the half-closed door. Somehow as I pulled it into the car, it got stuck in the steering wheel and popped back open unexpectedly, showering me in dirty water. I literally yelled, “Fuck it!”, threw the umbrella in my passenger’s seat and closed my door so that damn maroon Odyssey could pull into the parking space next to me.

I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a raccoon with frizzy hair staring back at me.

I took Simon to the sitter, gave up on the whole umbrella ordeal the second time around and showed up to work looking like a drowned rat. So if someone could make getting kids in and out of the car in the rain easier, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

If you drive a maroon Honda Odyssey, you suck.

Until Next Time,

Jamie