Do you wait or do you go?

It is 2:15 on Friday afternnon and I’m sitting at the red light, waiting for the left turn signal to turn green. Cars are zooming past my on my right- forward traffic has a green light. There are no oncoming vehicles. I impatiently tap the steering wheel and inch forward as I struggle with the dilemma: should I wait or should I go? Why am I in such a rush, you ask? Let us flashback to early this morning:

Friday morning starts off with Greg leaving at 6:45 for an appointment in the City. As the door closes behind him, Juliette wakes and starts calling for me- very loudly. I jump out of bed and run to get her, in hopes that she hasn’t yet waken Cosette. I bring her into my room and turn on Caillou and am debating whether I can sneak into the shower when I hear Cosette crying for me. That answers that question.

Flash forward 2 hours. We are leaving for daycare. I did not shower. Juliette has been very cranky and doesn’t want to walk or sit or kneel or stand or laydown. She just wants me to hold her. I’m debating whether I can leave her at daycare or not, and by the time we get halfway there and she is still screaming that it hurts I come to the obvious conclusion that she is not feeling well. Pick up cell phone, call mom, arrange to bring Juliette over. Cosette gets unceremoniously dumped at daycare. Juliette is joyful that she isn’t staying, although still complaining that it hurts. I can't get her to tell me what "it" is. She is walking like I imagine I did the first day after I gave birth- slowly, carefully, stiffly: it looks painful. Can you guess what the problem is? Juliette finally explains it very succinctly: “Poopy is stuck!” she wails.

I bring her to mom’s and call the pediatrician, explaining that she is in extreme discomfort and asking what I can do to ease things along. The receptionist promises to ask the doctor and get right back to me. Juliette won’t let go of me, so I decide to wait for the doctor to call, in case I need to run to the drugstore. Time passes. And finally, so does Juliette. Much to everyone’s relief. And no thanks to the pediatrician.

She seems happier, so I decide to head into work, where I am immediately faced with several mini-crises. Let us just sum it up as follows: new CO2 incubator was just installed. It is my lab duty to calibrate and maintain it. So, per instructions, I fill with water, turn on CO2. CO2 pressure can’t be controlled; trying to stave off an explosion, I forget about water until water starts pouring out the overflow valve. Turn off water, turn off CO2, take a deep breath…. go get some lunch and deal with it later.

I do deal with it later, and just as things seem to be settling enough that I can actually get some work done, my cell phone rings. It’s mom. Remember what I said about afternoon phonecalls? “Hi, Tina, it’s mom. Juliette just woke from her nap and she has a fever of 104.5”

I drop everything, my weeks worth of experiments will all go to hell but at this point I don't care. Get in the car and start rushing- without speeding or breaking any major laws- to get to Juliette.

So, if traffic going straight has a green light, and there is no oncoming traffic, and you are in a rush to get to your sick toddler, and you are staring at that stupid red left turn arrow, do you wait or do you go? I went.