How are You Supposed to Run Errands with a Baby?

Just woke up from a nap outside the DMV
in line sitting in a folding chair

I don't understand how people with kids are supposed to do these inane and time consuming errands.  I don't know how all of you moms and dads out there do it.  This is ridiculous!  There's eating, nap time, boredom, and diaper changing to contend with. 

Sean is working his butt off, and I'm not able to take off work to deal with this stuff.  I talked to my boss about what she did when she was a single parent.  Did her parents watch her little one while she ran errands?  Nope, like me, she trekked around town doing this stuff with her baby girl.  I thought I hated waiting in a government line when I was single.  Pssh.  Try doing it with a squirmy, fussy, breastfeeding baby!

When we moved into the house in Maryland, I had to go change my tags, registration, and license.  That was a two-day process.  I took Lily with me, because it could take three hours a pop, and I could not easily pump the amount of milk we would have used during that time.  I showed up the first day right when they opened--it was me and 50 other people.  I thought I'd get a number and sit down in a chair to wait for your turn.  You know, like you do in Virginia when I worked the night shift and no one was in front of me at the first counter.  NOPE.  You had to tell someone why you were there before you could get a number.  I spent more than 30 minutes in line before we could sit down.  I was freaking out holding a squirmy baby that just wanted to nurse.  But, I had so much stuff with me, and we had to get in and get out so that I could make it to work, I couldn't just get out of line to do what we needed to do.  When I had to change her diaper, I was afraid I wouldn't hear my number be called!

I had to go back the next day because I needed a 10th piece of paper that said I was a resident.  Ugh.  The second day, I got there 45 minutes before they opened, took a folding chair up to the door, and even napped Lily before the DMV opened.  We were in and out as quickly as possible.

When I got the notice a few weeks later that I needed a separate emissions test (this after I had to drop my car off for two days to get a safety check), I about shit a brick.  Come on!  Why couldn't this have been required BEFORE registration?  Like in Virginia and Ohio.  Ugh.  And, why is this a 50 step process?!  Lily and I get in the car and head to the emissions test center a half of an hour before they opened.  This place was a cluster to say the least.  The gates to what looked like a parking lot were locked.  The only place to line up was on the street, but cars were parked there.  I was the first person there, but this van pulled up in front of me to "park".  I was nursing Lily in the back seat, and when the gate opened, I had to put her back in the car seat and jump in the front, so that I didn't end up at the back of the line.  I almost got into it with the guy in the van who tried to jump the line.  When they did the test, I had to pull the car in and there wasn't an opportunity to really get Lily out of the car the entire time.  And, there wasn't a waiting area.  It was just mostly unfinished shop-ish in there.  It was over in a few minutes, but what an experience getting to drive away.  I had to stop on the side of the road and check her diaper, because there was nowhere to do that near the complex.

Putting air in the tires was a two-day process.  I stopped to get gas, but the gas pump kept kicking off.  Had to wait for the lady in front of me to move to her car (she was idling doing something, I don't know what) so that I could use the pump in front of me. This whole 10 minutes, no one was at the air pump.  As soon as I'm finished getting gas, a car pulls in front of me and up to the air dispenser.  DAMN IT.  So, I decided to vacuum my car while waiting.  NOPE.  The only open vacuum was out of order.  DAMN IT.  I decided to leave and come back the next day, because I couldn't make this a 20-30 minute stop at Lily's bed time.

My tires were low on air, because I had screws in not one, but TWO tires that needed patched. I found several tire places near me.  The next day, I pack Lily into the car at 7:00am to get to the tire place when it first opened so that we weren't there all day and I could actually make it to work.  Oops.  I looked up the hours for the wrong tire place, so the one I showed up at opened at 9:00am.  No wonder why there were no cars in the parking lot!  It had awesome Google reviews and I remember Sean had a tire patched there lickety-split a few months ago.  I decided to head down the road with the fussy baby to the Just Tire place that was actually open at 7:30am.  Turns out that they do EVERYTHING and tires, so the guy tells me that I need to leave my car for a day (to patch a tire) because I don't have an appointment.  We head back down the road to the other place.  We walked to Starbucks, watched the cars, and then came back to nurse in the car.  When they finally opened at 9:00am, we'd been there for almost two hours.  They were super fast.  They patched both tires in 40 minutes.  But, I was starting to blow her nap time, and we were getting an increasingly fussy baby. If she fell asleep on the way home, we'd be in trouble, because the convertible carseat doesn't come out of the car, and I had to go to work!

I was finally able to vacuum my car on my lunch break.  I have been trying for a couple of weeks to find time to do that.

And now, I have a headlight out and the one lamp that does work is kinda pointed in the wrong direction.  I'd never know, except I'm on the night shift for two weeks, so I'm driving in the dark every day.  We have tried two times to stop at the auto parts store, but we keep running out of time in the morning.  I have no idea how we're going to manage to get a new bulb.  Hopefully, Sean can help me do that this weekend.

Thank goodness we can walk to Target.  That's all I have to say.