I started to sob loudly and refused to be consoled. My tired and bewildered parents tried holding me, walking me around, and letting me lay down. Hours ticked by as I wailed out my fury with the range and decibels of an ambulance siren and my parents contemplated staying awake during the morning's conference schedule.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night the room was filled with that thrumming, echoing silence that comes when a crying child has just calmed. My dad, lying still and hoping that I wouldn't start up again, felt me crawl on the bed next to him, bend over him, and stroke his forehead.
"Oh, Daddy, you're so tired. Daddy, you need to sleep. Go to sleep, Daddy," I repeated over and over, my face a picture of patience and concern. As you can imagine, my advice was not well received, seeing that I was the only one preventing just that.
Thankfully, my parents are forgiving people and let the retelling of that embarrassing story at family gatherings be its own punishment. Maybe they also looked forward to the day when I would have my own children: Their antics would surely pay me back for whatever shenanigans I made them endure.
Oh, yeah.
Craig and I looked forward to Thanksgiving week all through October and early November. He finally had a job with "real time off" and we'd be able to take a week long road trip to Tennessee to see his family and celebrate. We knew the first time we'd traveled as a family of five could have difficult moments, but didn't see a reason to put it off. We'd never go anywhere with three kids under two if we didn't open ourselves up to being flexible and having a good time no matter what. Knowing I needed to be prepared for anything, I went to Walmart the day before and spent $200, buying new leak-proof sippies, toddler snack-catcher cups, three kinds of crackers, two kinds of M&M's, and those bottled iced coffees that are so much better than the McDonalds drive thru coffees when you need a quick caffeine boost.
We got off to a slightly late start because Craig was up with an upset stomach the night before. I tried to stay calm during the loading the car phase, anxious to get on the road. I was also mentally mapping every mile of our drive to Atlanta, knowing we'd be on the road late if we didn't make early progress. Carrie and Melina napped in their car seats for the first several hours. Every two to three hours we'd park at a rest stop and spring into action like a pit crew: nursing, changing diapers, and letting Devon walk around and pick up things. Devon, the best toddler traveler, sang songs to himself and pointed raptly at cars. At 5 p.m. we crossed the border into Georgia.
I set cruise control to 70 mph and watched the billboards on Highway 75 whiz by. All advertised strip clubs and crisis pregnancy centers, making me wonder if the two businesses were somehow related. Craig and I smiled at each other, enjoying one of those moments where we feel like we have three happy children largely due to our parenting prowess.
Two hours later I sighed, thinking I'd given birth to the three unhappiest children on the planet. Devon's "intrepid adventurer" mood reached the end of its shelf life and he started banging his head rhythmically on the back of his car seat. Melina jerked awake with one of her trademark full body startles, opened her mouth, and wailed the opening bars of The William Tell Overture. Devon, suddenly interested in this new development, looked around the side of his car seat and his eyes fell on the round, green paci perched temptingly in sleeping Carrie's mouth. "A BALL!" he said wonderingly, and reached over to pull it out. Carrie's cries added the tympani part to Melina's soprano, achieving an effect exclusive to a pair of crying twins. Unsettled by all the noise, instigator Devon then decided to join in.
We tried stopping to nurse, Craig holding each in turn while I tried to use "the universal pacifiers" to get the twins calm again. Devon, upset at not being allowed to get out and run, fussed.
"Devon," I said in the perfectly calm voice that Dr. Dobson recommends for parental discipline. The face of innocence peeped out at me from around the car seat, lips fixed in the pouty smile of a Hummel figurine.
"Give Mommy the paci, honey," I cooed. I took the offered paci in my one free hand. When we were finally able to start up again, I took the driver's seat and sighed, mentally calculating the number of hours it would take to get to Atlanta, still 180 miles away.
"I don't feel so good," said Craig, holding his stomach. "I hope I'm not coming down with something."
The girls started crying again, apparently not impressed by the extra nursing stop as a show of my good faith. Devon fussed and begged for new car toys only to pitch them over his seat and whine for more. Craig grew sicker by the minute, sipping Coke weakly and grimacing. I concentrated on the road and tried to focus on the miles, not the hours, as the evening crept along.
When we finally reached Atlanta, Craig tried to read the map and my copied-from-Yahoo directions as I scanned road signs looking for the corresponding streets. This division of labor that usually serves us well failed miserably. Three lanes of traffic sprouted up on my right. I was unable to dart across all three without killing us, so I couldn't make our exit. Craig mumbled directions I wouldn't have been able to hear over the din even if he had a bullhorn. I got off at the next exit and found a place to ask for directions. Scantily clad women in high heels and drug dealers in hoodies turned to watch our minivan go by, I'm sure thinking we seemed out of place. I stopped at a gas station and was given competent directions by a clean cut Indian gentleman that also seemed out of place in the 'hood. I'm not given to Hallmark Channel flights of fancy, but I'm not sure he wasn't an angel sent to save us from our predicament (cue backlighting).
Fifteen minutes later we were in our hotel room and things were finally peaceful, except for the sound of my three children crying and my husband being violently ill in the bathroom. The room was not the two-room suite I had reserved, so we would all have to quiet down and sleep in the same room. As I rushed around setting up the pack-and-plays and getting out pajamas, I muttered an incoherent monologue as a nightly prayer:
Lord, I didn't think you were given to sarcasm, but when you said in the Bible that women are "the weaker vessels" you couldn't possibly have had this evening in mind. What about Pastor's flowery, feel-good sermon of a few months ago about a woman being like a piece of fine china, delicate because we're set aside for a special purpose? Right now I don't even feel like a piece of earthenware. Try styrofoam! Pish tosh!!!
We expected our first road trip as a family of five to have some awkward moments, but nothing could've prepared us for that first night. It was my payback for that night in Minneapolis when I cried and cried so my parents couldn't get any sleep. I don't think I was truly capable of understanding how awful that night was for them until now. Children do have a way of making you look at your own memories with renewed perspective.
The rest of the trip went remarkably well considering the rough start. We enjoyed a recovery day at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. Craig looks peaked in the pictures, but we still had a good time as a family.
My mom and dad arrived to spend the holidays last night. Before the kids and I drove to pick them up in Orlando, I tried to give Devon his second haircut. Devon, suspicious of everything from the plastic drape to the barber shears, refused to let me get anywhere near his head. He craned his neck around, presenting his face instead every time I tried to get a snip of hair. I gave up after fifteen minutes, resigning myself to Devon seeing Grammy and Grandpa for the first time in four months looking like a Hobbit.
I've GOT to cut Devon's hair soon. If it gets any longer, he's going to look like Justin Bieber. I think distracting Devon while I cut his hair is going to be Grandpa's job.
What Devon doesn't know is that Grandpa didn't like having his hair cut either when he was a little boy. I've seen a picture of a tearful two-year-old Jerry getting his first haircut. It took four of his much older brothers and sisters to distract him by talking to him and bouncing him on a bicycle seat.
I think it's time for some payback.
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