Wednesday's Turn Around

OMG what a crazy couple of days! So, here's the scoop:

I was on my way to pick up Alex from school Wednesday. I realized I forgot a bag of cute toddler clothes for a new friend at Alex’s school. Since this is a new friend and I’m on my best behavior, I thought I’d do a quick turn around (in the minivan) and get this goodie bag for her. Where I decided to do this wasn't the brightest spot and therefore I went too fast, slamming to a jerky stop and pinching my tire between my rim and the sidewalk (really, I swear I used to be a great driver). As I was driving back to my house, 2 blocks from 'the place', I heard a hissing sound. In my denial, I decided someone turned their sprinklers on...denial is such a funny thing!

Back at the house, I ran in and got the (apparently) much needed bag and took a gander at my tire (since reality was knocking at my brain) and saw the huge gash. After placing my thumb over the gash, I knew it was probably much worse than I wanted it to be because I could barely keep the air from gusting. With denial still holding on strong, I decided to go towards to gas station to see if I could overinflate the tire enough to pick up Alex and make it back home. Sounds like a plan, right? HA! What a funny girl am I! I didn't make it 1/2 way there (there being less than ¼ mile away) before I was on a complete flat.

Dumph, da-dumph, da-dumph…the minivan rocking us (me, Violet and Ben) from side to side with a lame limp…denial was finally gone. This was enough of a flat that someone decided to yell it out to me. Yeah, thanks…I kinda figured that one out. He pointed me to Brakes Plus.

After extracting the kids from their car seats, I walked into the storefront hoping that they would see the desperation of a mother late to pick up her son from school and hoping to get her tire fixed at a brakes place. In walked the greatest man at Brakes Plus who told me that I shouldn't even bother trying to inflate it because it was already off the rim. Yep, not surprised about that either.

He nicely drove my beloved, took 3 months to wrap my head around getting it, minivan onto his little ramp to find my spare and put it on for me. The spare release is (conveniently) located under Ben's seat, so Ben needed to come out to get to the tire. Remember, the car is now up on the ramp. For containment sake (part of parenting is containment), I decided to reach up and get Ben out of the car, still in the car seat. By the time I made it to the 1/2 way point to placing him on the ground, I felt it. Yep. The Pain (notice the capitol "P").

After calling the school to explain my ordeal, and patiently waited for the tire, I continued to note the amount of movements I couldn't do, I knew I was totally &^%$ed! For the first time in my life, I was in enough Pain to subject myself to the yanking, twisting, turning and snapping of a chiropractor. I was ushered to a new chiropractic office by my surprisingly caring neighbors (that’s another deal). Ironically, it was directly next door to Brakes Plus.

Since Wednesday, I have done two things. Visit the second man I was happiest to meet on Wednesday (the first being my tire changer) every day, Dr. Chad. He, I am happy to report, doesn’t yank, twist, turn or snap anything. I get very relaxing deep tissue massages from an electronic device to help the spasms stop and then he gently pops what wants to pop. I get to go home ice and try not to lift anyone. HA. Funny girl again. Did I mention that I have an 8 month old (who just learned to crawl Wednesday as well – hhhmmm), a 1 ½ year old who gets into everything and a 5 year old special boy with CP. Yeah, I won’t be lifting anyone, bending, chasing, reaching…and I digress.

The second thing I do is play back that day, full of firsts and adventure, and know exactly where I went wrong. There aren’t many things we can do in our lives and know exactly where the wrong turn was (for me literally). There aren’t many times we can picture exactly what would have been if we just didn’t make one decision or another. So I wonder, do you have a moment like this? One that sticks out in your mind that led you to an experience or set of experiences you definitely wouldn’t have had; life changing or even just week or day changing? If so, I’d love to hear about it.