The other day I came across a status update from an old high school friend on facebook; she is a new mom and her son is just about 7 months old. In the status update, she stated that she was “finally getting her mom confidence” after a good day out with her son doing nothing in particular and her status reminded me of this “adventure” and this post I wrote when my first son was the same age back in 2007.
Originally posted on The Funny Mom Blog on August 1, 2007 this post is a recap of a very bad day. At this point in my life I had not had the responsibility of taking care of things. I know that sounds silly to say, but it is true. As you read this funny post, keep in mind that I was very naive in all things responsible and all things mommyhood. Clearly, I did not yet have my “mom confidence”.
Enjoy!
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Today we had an adventure. Mostly in part, because of my awesome navigation skilz. To start off, I’d like to explain that I broke my middle toe on my right foot this morning because of my awesome navigation skilz, either that or the kitchen wall moved in an inch from where it used to be. Either way, my toe is being lame and not cooperating.
The kid and I had to go to the Orange County Hall of Records to get a official copy of his birth certificate for my husbands new company HR department (for health insurance). Now, you ask…why didn’t you get it when he was born? Who knows, only sane people do things in advance so they’re not forced to actually go to the Hall of Records that is located in scuzville.
side note:When I first started working at my old job, I got a little bit of grief from one the clients because I didn’t know my way around scuzville. For God’s sake, I avoid scuzville LIKE THE PLAGUE (and for good reason). I lived in Orange when I was in high school, which is only 5 miles from downtown scuzville but I still stayed the fizzle away.
So I used mapquest to get me there. That was the easy part. But for some reason, I didn’t think ahead enough to make a mental map of where the actual building was I needed to go to. Like a jackass. So, I followed the driving directions and it took me to a parking garage. The garage was practically empty and that should have been my first sign, but like a lame ass I thought “oooh, they’re not busy…good for us”. We’re on the second level and we go to use the elevator and it’s broken. I had to carry The kid and his stroller down two flights of stairs. When we got to the bottom, there were some people with a look on their face like “oh poor you”. Yea, thanks for offering to help! In a split decision jackass-y move I decide to turn LEFT instead of right because it looks more “stroller friendly”. (Had I made a right instead of left, this whole adventure would have been avoided).
We got lost.
And for the life of me, I couldn’t find a directory and it’s like 110′ degrees by now and I’m sweating and my poor, broken, uncooperative toe is throbbing. And The kid won’t keep his hat on his head to save his life. He’s swinging it around like a flag saying: “please help us, we’re lost”. And like a good mother, I forgot to put sunscreen on him. So after wandering around for about forever, we found a directory. The stupid building we needed was about 5 miles away! Around we turn and off we went. After we passed some people that were eyeing us like lunch meat (because scuzville is inhabited by cannibals). As we were hiking the 10.2 miles to the Hall of Records building, I started looking around. There were the strangest mix of people I had ever seen. There were people on their lunch breaks, people awaiting their trials, people sleeping, people waiting for family members, homeless people, scary people and people who just escaped jail. And everyone was smoking! Under one tree by the Hall of Records building, there was a group of schwinn outlaws. Seriously. They all looked like bike messengers from hell. And I don’t think downtown scuzville has bike messengers. But these people had bikes. And they looked dirty.
By the time we finally get there I had taken two breaks and my face was beat red. Like, cherry tomato red. And I was s w e a t y. It was gross. The actual process to get The kid’s birth certificate was simple as pie. You “register” on one of the 20 computers, wait in line, pay 17 bucks and whamo! you’ve got yourself an official birth certificate. The entire process only took us 10 minutes. Getting there took us about 5.25 hours…
The best part was carrying The kid’s stroller UP the two flights of stairs in the parking garage. And for some reason, he thought it was a fun game mommy was playing “giggle giggle – look at mommy heave and sweat!” I couldn’t help but laugh too, knowing that this blog was going to be the best blog ever.
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I kind of love that I have this post, it’s such a sincerely awesome time capsule and reading it jets me back to those much simpler times. I love following along on my old high school friend’s new mom adventures too. New momhood is filled with so much anxiety and fear and yet it’s so magically priceless too.
2007 you is hilarious. “Scuzville.” Oh, my.