In case you were wondering, I have been MIA due to a week long road trip with my family. The family and I hit the road last Tuesday. Destination, Fair Lawn, New Jersey. We were off to spend time with some friends, and check out the Big Apple. I have never been to NYC, well, outside of a quick airport stop. I certainly have never seen the sights, per se. We planned on stopping in Blacksburg, Virginia for a quick overnight to break up the trip, and also to see some other dear friends of ours. I have to say, I really don't enjoy road trips. I have fun once we get there, but nothing about sitting in a cramped car for hours, not being able to stretch out the way I would like, and sitting still for that long actually appeals to me in any shape or form. And then we added the challenge of kids. Kids add a whole new layer of torture to the equation. Not only am I bored and completely ready to be where ever we are headed, I am in charge of convincing two little people that this is fun and keeping them entertained for hours on end. Almost impossible. especially when you take into account that the hubby and I have completely different attitudes about the kids and road trips. No surprise there...Mike thinks the kids should watch the DVD player as little as possible. In fact, the tablet and DVD player should only be used as a last resort. The children should be eating healthy fruits and vegetables, and they should be completely content listening to his audio version of "The Economist," thank you very much...His argument, we never had movies in the car, we survived. They should be able to entertain themselves. Let's face it...if our parents had had the chance, they would have played movies for us in the car. They only came up with license plate Bingo and stupid car songs out of desperation, and possibly because they were drinking heavily at the rest stops. When I took the kids to Maryland to see my brother by myself, we watched movies whenever the kids wanted, ate their favorite snacks, and my head hurt so much less. Not only does "The Economist" give me a headache, the whining that is caused by the children's extreme boredom does as well. Car seats are the equivalent of baby jail. It is actually torture for a 3 y/o and 4 y/o to sit still for 900+ miles. They deserve some Dora the Explorer and Thomas the Train as escapism, in my humble opinion. So, we try and meet in the middle. There were times when the children were completely quiet and happy (while the DVD player was on), and times they whined until I thought my eardrums would explode (during Mike's forced Economist periods.) No matter what, 900 miles is a long time to be in the car...all together...unable to escape from each other.
Our first stop was very welcome. Not only did we get to spend some time with our awesome friends Dave and Paul, but we were all able to escape the confines of our SUV for a several hours. Paul took us out to the river where he works. The area is beautiful, and the kids, both furry and not, were able to run around and burn off a little energy. Abby, our family dog, discovered she is a water dog. She had a blast wading through the water. Sadly, I didn't quite plan for our side trip, and we spent the rest of the trip to NJ smelling the fabulous aroma of wet dog. I couldn't complain. Abby was by far the best behaved child the entire trip.
Some where just outside of Hershey, Pennsylvania, it became obvious that it was time for yet another potty break. Colin's legs started to twitch, and then he would kind of make this little whiny sound. He never said he had to go, but we figured out that it usually stopped after we took him to the bathroom. I took him inside the rest stop, and he began to freak out about the bathroom. The poor kid has a horrible fear of public restrooms and the automatic flushing toilets. After I finally convinced him that the potty "wasn't scary," and that I would wait to flush until he was out of the stall, I realized he had a skid mark in his underwear. Fabulous...the kid needs to poop. For any other kid, this would be no big deal, but for Colin, pooping is a huge production that must be performed in exactly the right setting. He gets horribly constipated and it actually hurts him a great deal, so he puts it off as long as possible, which only aggravates the problem. I wind up sitting in front of him, coaching him like a labor patient, counting, and begging him to push harder. It actually borders on ridiculous at some points, but a mommy has to do, what a mommy has to do to get the job done. He of course refuses to sit on the potty at the rest stop, no big surprise, but he agrees to give the "car potty" a chance. I proceed to stand at the back of the SUV begging and bribing my son to poop, while Mike releases Molly and the dog for a few minutes of outside play time. I have no idea exactly what happened, but as Molly rolled down the hill at the rest stop, Mike realized she was pushing poop out of her pull up from every direction. Houston, we have a serious Code Brown situation, just outside of Hershey, Pennsylvania. The irony was impossible to miss. Mike snatches the diaper back pack out of the car, and takes Molly up the hill to a picnic table. I am still on poop watch at the SUV. All I can see in the distance is Mike stripping Molly completely, and using what appears to be every wipe in the bag to clean her up. I venture over to take a peak at her car seat, only to discover poop all over her seat belt. All I am wondering at this point was how he missed the giant pile of poop seeping out of our daughter. We have now scared a family of 5 away from their play time on the hill, as well as horrified an older man in his car. The older man continues to stare at me as if I have four heads as I continue to cheer my son on to a successful poop and my husband strips our daughter outside on a picnic table. After all of the pooping is completed and cleaned up, We all get back in the car, and finish the last couple of hours to NJ.
We finally reach our destination, and we crawl into bed. We make loose plans for hitting some NJ sites the next day, and NYC for the two days after that. Until then, I may or may not have slipped my children some Benadryl and poured myself a glass of wine. The rest of the story will be continued in the next blog post...Suffice it to say that more drama and adventures continued to unfold.
I can hear it now:
ReplyDelete"Hershey -- come in, Hershey -- Hershey, we have a problem...a very Brown problem!"