LONGEST Trip Ever: Part 3

 Day 3: 

After a refreshing few days staying with an awesome friend in Georgia, we were ready for the final leg of our trip.  The kids once again were NOT ready to be back in the car and say goodbye to their BFFs, but onward and upward.

This day was the WORST-We’d already done 14+ hours in the car and this one was supposed to be the long day-ha, I know, as if the other days we’re already long, this one was scheduled to be the longest so far at just over 8 hours….YIKES!

Once again, I’m lying to myself, believing that surely I’ve got this, blah, blah, blah….

We start out and nothing really major-this time I made it 3 hours and 30 mins before utter chaos, meltdown, car HELL.  So at least we’re improving, right?! No, actually what the delay in meltdown was, they were building it up, joining forces to make this the most grand break down we’d seen to date. 

We’re at the 3 hour mark and the kids start asking for lunch, and I behold the most miraculous sign one can see on a road trip-CHICK-FIL-A next exit! Our most favorite fast food place-when I save favorite I mean, we eat there so regularly, my children know the logo, the cows, and menu! I use a meal at Chick-fil-a for major bribes, rewards, and boo-boo cure!

 So we’re in the car, see the sign and hallelujahs rang out, the heavens opened up and at that moment life was complete.  Okay, perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but you fellow mommies will agree that sometimes you have to take the little wins b/c that may be the only win you have all day! We stop at Chick-fil-a, eat lunch, and play.  It is then time to get back on the road….

The kids begrudgingly get back in the car and that’s when it happened.  We get back on the freeway and pull away from any sign of civilization and together they begin to scream.  As I mentioned in previous days, I just block this out. 

They begin to fight with each other-which, honestly at this point, better them doing that to each other than me (I know, I’m a terrible person, but hey, you mommies can’t say you haven’t felt that way before, at least once!)

Then, the worst thing of all, DEAFENING SILENCE…Those of you with little kids know why this is so dangerous-I look in my rear view mirror and see that my 4 year old has wiggled out of the top part of her car seat and is attempting to change the 2 year old’s diaper-WITH POOP IN IT! She's managed to undo the diaper and is now pulling it out from under her sister's poopy butt. 

I don't even know what the appropriate, motherly scolding response is in that moment-so I just yell, “STOP touching your sister’s poop!” One of those things you never imagine yourself saying, then you have a couple kids and all of a sudden the weirdest, grossest, craziest things start coming out of your mouth. 

“STOP” was the wrong thing to yell b/c then she just drops diaper and now there is poop rolling around on the floor in the backseat of my car.  In my moment of confusion, still traveling 70 mph down the highway, I yell, “Why did you drop that?” Then I get an answer (with a tone that is SOOOO 16 year old attitude) “You said Stop, so I did”…. Well, yet another mommy fail, she’s absolutely right, that IS what I said. Yup, that's it, I once again was throwing up the white flag of surrender and admitting udder (stinky) defeat!

5 LONG, smelly, angry minutes pass until, I find a place to stop and clean up the mess.  As I’m picking up poop off the floor of my car, my sweet little 2 year old looks at me with a huge smile on her face and says, “Thanks, Mommy, that’s stinky”.  I couldn’t agree more, my love!

A while longer in the car, a few more lollipops, movies, and over-the-top bribes and we finally reach Tampa, Florida-also known to me during this trip as the Promised Land!!

Over the course of 3 days alone in the car with my kids, I laughed like I never have before, did things I’ve harshly judged other parents for, and learned that sanity is relative (and fleeting) with little kids.   

I do have to say, I kinda feel like Super Mom just for making it-at least until the next time I have to be trapped in a confined space with those mini-monsters (Appropriate “Mommy translation”: I love my sweet kids, I just don't want to be in the car alone with them for 22+ hours EVER AGAIN!)

The LONGEST Trip Ever: Part 2

 Day 2: 

We spent the weekend with my sister and her family in Viriginia and then were headed out for day 2 in the car-this one was LONG-it was 8-9 hours down to Georgia.  And leaving was particularly hard for my little ones b/c they LOVE their cousins and were sad we weren’t going to see them again for 6 months!

With renewed confidence, I got every sugary snack, bribe, and sticker I could find, stacked it on the passenger seat and was sure, with lessons learned from the previous driving day, I was much more prepared now.  I know, a sad delusion, but when you’re facing that much time in the car with 2 little kids, reality escapes you-it’s about whatever lie you must tell yourself to survive.  They’re toddlers, if they sense weakness, it’s all over-they will have you crying in a corner in 10 minutes.  No, my kids aren’t particularly naughty or wild, but if you have little kids, you know what I’m talking about.  They study us, find our weaknesses, and then wait for the optimum moment to exploit said weakness to reach their ultimate goal: GETTING THEIR WAY!

So, with visions of parenting and driving grandeur, we were once again on our way.  This time we made it about 1 hour before our first dilemma.  We were driving through the mountains and it started to rain-no big deal, I’ve driven in rain plenty of times, but for some reason, my normally cheerful 2 year old, Annie, decided that the rain was scary, awful, and worth screaming about.

 Normally I just power through the useless cry.  You mommies know what I mean, you just tune it out.  It’s a gift we have, but about 15 minutes into this “the rain is going to kill me” scream of terror, she figure out I was ignoring her.  What’s a toddler to do?! Well, this toddler started grabbing everything she could find and throwing it at the back of my head.

 Now, my husband and I are NOT athletic people AT ALL.  In fact, it’s laughable how awesome we look when playing any sport.  BUT for some reason, little Annie is amazingly accurate with her throwing of random objects.  Perhaps we got an athletic one-a skill I am more than willing to encourage, just not at the moment when I driving 70 mph in the rain, on the mountain roads. 

Once again, 1 hour into the trip and I’ve admitted defeat.  There is nowhere to pull over and we’re in the middle of nowhere with no exits, so I the next thing I do is just plain shameful.  I start grabbing her ammunition-the bags of cookies, tiny toddler shoes, stuffed animals, which are now hitting me in the face and accumulating in my lap and begin throwing them back at her.  BUT like I said before, I have no athletic acumen, which means I’m now just creating mass chaos in the backseat with toys, food, and anything else I can find flying in every direction.  Not my proudest mommy moment.

 All of a sudden both of the kids start laughing hysterically and start yelling, “This is so fun, Mommy” “I LOVE this fun throwing game”….. So somehow in my moment of shameful mommy behavior, my kids still managed to have fun. The rain stopped and  after about 3 minutes, they got bored with the game and went back to simply watching their movie. 

I’m not going to win any “Mommy of the year” awards for that, but thankfully the next 7 hours went by great and we made it to Georgia with my sanity relatively intact and my girls still thinking this is part of some super fun vacation.  That’s the great thing about kids-if they want to have fun, they will. I could learn a thing or two from them about a positive attitude and finding fun in the simple, silly, random things in life!

The LONGEST Trip Ever-Part 1

I recently drove 22 hours, 38 minutes, and 56 seconds (over 3 days) in the car SOLO with my 2 kids-2 years old and 4 years old.  I have been trying to figure out how to capture the magic and wonder of this experience on paper, so here goes nothing…..

My husband is the USAF and got picked up for a 6 month job in Tampa, Florida-they wouldn’t pay to move us since it’s only temporary, instead, we are in a fully furnished apartment-I know, sounds rough right?! Well, this is the pay-off for the aforementioned car trip!

Now, how did I end up on this long haul from Maryland to Tampa solo, you may ask. Well, my family had committed to hosting a foreign exchange student from Spain for the summer, but that was before we knew my husband had to be in Florida the first week in July.  So he left and the 3 kids and I stayed in Maryland until mid-August when our student went home. 

After 7 weeks alone with 3 kids I thought I could handle pretty much anything, but NOTHING prepared me for the car trip, NOTHING!

Day 1:

I’m optimistic, and also feeling like I could conquer the world b/c I managed to put the top carrier on the car, pack everything, and get the house ready all on my own.  I didn’t realize my proud victorious attitude would only last the first 40 mins of this 22 hour trip!

I got the kids loaded up, cued up the DVD player in the back seat, set the GPS and off we went.  We made it about 20 miles before I started to realize this may be the biggest mistake of my life. 

We live north of Washington DC-if you have ever driven there, you feel my pain right now, if you haven’t, let me help you get an idea what it’s like.  Imagine locking yourself in a small room with 10 screaming toddlers for 2 hours while trying to write the most important term paper in your life-that's what driving in DC does to your nerves!

So we get to DC, and I expected some traffic, but it was 10am, so I thought I'd planned it pretty well to miss most of the various rush hours-NOT even close! We found lanes of traffic being diverted to the shoulder for construction.  Of course, I’m still feeling like I got this, so I pump up the radio, and prepare to sit for a while, and what should happen next? I hear from the back seat, “Mom, I have to go potty” come out of the mouth of my 4 year old, Natalie.  I am sure she doesn’t have to go, after all, she went right before we left and we’ve only been in the car for about 30 minutes.  I tell her to hold it and turn the radio back up. 

About 5 minutes later (and still in the same place we were before) she yells, “MOOOOOMMMMM, I REALLY HAVE TO GO!” at this point, even if I wanted to take care of this situation, I can’t.  The nearest exit is about 3 miles up and we’ve gone literally about 15 feet in the past 20 minutes-at this rate I could walk to Tampa faster. This time I’m a little more creative in my response, “Well, we could go in the bushes over there if you REALLY REALLY have to, but there’s no nice potty for a long time” She quickly says, “I can hold it” and I am once again feeling triumphant. 

Fast Forward a meager 10 miles in 2 hours, and we’re still just getting outside of DC.  Natalie once again requests to use the bathroom.  It’s been a while, so I figure she probably really does have to go and I’m starting to see the infamous potty squirm, so I look for an exit.  I find one, and hop off the freeway in search of any place with a bathroom. 

I am not super familiar with DC-when we go there to sightsee we usually just take the train and when we do drive, it’s just passing through on the way to see family in Virginia, so I have NO IDEA where we are, but it’s starting to look scary.  Not like, oh, “that store is a Walmart not a Target”, more like, if  “I make eye contact with that dude standing on the corner, I may get shot!” 

So after only 3 hours in the car, we’re lost, my kid has to pee, and we all may die-I believe it was at that moment I fully realized I was in a little over my head.  Yep, 3 hours in the car solo with my kids and I was waving the white flag. 

Funny thing about those situations, nothing magical happens when you admit defeat, there is no fairy godmother who rescues you, no choreographed musical number doesn’t begin to play to lighten the mood, and a kiss from Prince Charming won’t help clean up the pee now in my back seat. 

SO-I call foul on all those fairy tales, musicals, and chick flicks.  I love them as much as the next girl, but geeze, talk about a false sense of reality.  Just when I’m doubting I can do the next 4 days and 19+ hours in the car, my sweet little 2-year-old starts singing “Jesus Loves Me”  When she finishes she says (in broken words that only momma can understand) I WUUUV you, Mommy-Thissss fuuuun Twip! 

I love how in life’s moments of defeats God uses our children to remind us what’s really important.  So, I put on my big girl pants, decided it didn’t matter if the car smelled disgusting, and onward we went.  We made it the next 3 hours with lots of snacks, happy singing, and Elmo!

Victory (well sorta) for me! The only problem: I had to do this AGAIN TOMORROW and the next day AND the day after that…..