Driving with my Eyes Closed

If I could bottle up and sell my amazingly crystal clear hindsight ability, I would be one rich mama.  Case in point?  This past weekend.  Am I really able to pretend like I’m still a 21 year old college kid for two straight nights in a row?  Not so much.  And should I really try to make a 6+ hour road trip on little to no sleep at all?  Probably not.  And is it a really good idea to take a Benadryl the night before taking said 6+ hour road trip?  Yeah, you get the picture.  It’s all much easier to see the stupidity in such decision making after the fact.

Over the weekend, I had the chance to get away from my motherly duties and hang out with some long-time friends from my hometown in Indiana.  And to say that I had fun would be a complete understatement, since I had SO much fun that I forgot all about the importance of sleep.  By Sunday, I was draggin’ some serious ass, not to mention suffering from a vicious allergy attack.  So before turning in for the night, I decided to pop a Benadryl in the hopes of waking up the next morning able to breathe more clearly for the long drive back to Chicago.  (HUGE mistake!)

I felt fairly decent when I woke up, but I still made sure to grab a Diet Coke for some extra go-go juice just in case.  I had my tunes, I had my caffeine, and I was ready to roll.  Unfortunately, though, neither of these made a lick of difference because I hadn’t been on the road for more than an hour before I started to completely zone out.  Holy shitcakes — I was nodding off on the frickin’ highway!  I wiggled my head, I smacked my face, and I guzzled my Diet Coke, but nothing was snapping me out of my haze.  I was certain that I was gonna end up in a ditch if I didn’t pull off the road.

So I found the nearest gas station and pulled into the parking lot.  I figured I’d just try to shut my eyes for a few little minutes and see if a quick cat nap helped at all.  I’d been dozing for probably five or so minutes before my phone rang and woke me up.  And as I answered my phone, I noticed a very perplexed truck driver staring intensely at me through the window.  I’m sure he was wondering if I was dead or cracked out on drugs cause who the hell sleeps in a gas station parking lot?  Nevertheless, though, the tiny little shut-eye actually helped get me back on track, so I set out once again on the long journey home.

And even though I wasn’t technically asleep, I guess I was still pretty out of it.  I discovered this when I decided to stop and pick up a sandwich for lunch.  So I walked into what I thought was a sub place, only to discover that I was actually in an Army recruitment office.  Oops!  Not exactly what I had in mind for my mid-day meal since I certainly didn’t feel like being all I could be.  (To my defense though, this particular Jimmy John’s was in a damn strip mall, which I despise.  I mean, seriously, all the stores look the same — do they not?!)

Surprisingly, by nothing short of a sheer miracle, I somehow made it back home in one piece without harming myself or anyone else in the process.  My super fun weekend definitely came with a high price cause I will be playing catch up now for a good solid week.  It seems that I don’t snap back like I used to < ahem >.  Despite the extra long recovery process, though, it was absolutely worth every sleepless minute of it.  Every mama needs time to recharge her batteries and feel like a person again.

Easter on the Road

Did you know that the Easter bunny has a kick-ass GPS system?  Yep, it seems that floppy-earred furball’s not gonna let a little thing like geography trip him up on making all his deliveries.  So if you happened to be in downtown Chattanooga on Saturday night and wondered why an overgrown rabbit was lurking around the Sheraton, don’t get your Peeps all in a bunch over it.  He was simply making a very special stop for two little shorties super duper early on Easter morning.

In hindsight, it would’ve really helped the Head Hare out if I’d thought to bring all the Easter goodies with us when we left for our week-long road trip to Florida, but we all know what hindsight is — a crockpot full of crap.  Naturally, I forgot all about grabbing the stash in the mad rush to get out of the house and onto the road.  So, by the time we finally stopped for the night in Tennessee on our return trip home, we realized that we were twelve eggs short of a dozen.  I sent my husband out to the nearest Walgreens after we finally got the kids to sleep, and he came back with some seriously slim pickins.  He had to beg, borrow and plead and do everything but offer the manager sexual favors in order to convince her to sell him the only remaining Easter grass in town, which just so happened to be part of their store display.  She finally obliged, so he grabbed some M&M’s, Reese’s eggs, a couple of crappy baskets and a bag of plastic eggs and raced back over to the hotel.

Realizing that we needed something else to spice up the lackluster loot, we decided to pool our money together, scrounging up as many quarters and dollar bills that we could find, and we went to work, cramming chocolates and cash into as many eggs as we possibly could.  I made the unfortunate mistake of laying down to “rest my eyes” for a few minutes, so my husband was left with the task of finding some decent hiding places for all the eggs in the hotel room.  (And for the record, a hotel room is NOT ideal for egg hunting.)

When the kids woke up the next morning, they were totally stoked to see that they hadn’t been forgotten.  They raced around picking up eggs and counting all their findings. They were amazed that the Big Bunny had still managed to track them down. That’s the great thing about kids — their little brains are so young and innocent that you can tell them just about anything and they’ll believe you.  If I could somehow squeeze them into one of these blue plastic eggs and protect them from all the REAL bullshit that’s out there in the world, I’d hippity hop to it in a heartbeat.

Things I’ve Learned This Week

** I have amazing hand-eye coordination when it comes to catching puke.

** Twenty-two hours in a car can cause hallucinations.

** My son could very well be a rooster.

** Skinny jeans and yellow fudge cake ice cream do not go together.

** Kids lose their sense of hearing when on vacation.

** I am a freak magnet.

** My daughter has a stomach of steel, as was proven after eating yogurt from April of 2009.

** “Little Bee” by Chris Cleave is an amazing, can’t-put-it-down read.

** My last brain cell can still comprehend a whole book.

** Just because you’re wearing camouflage undies does not make it ok for you to drop trow in public.  (Unfortunately, my son did not learn this lesson.)

** My husband needs to enter sandcastle rehab.

** Dentures really freak out kids.  (A big thanks to the old couple at the pool for pointing this out.)

** Red velvet cake = total and complete mouthgasm.

** Church music should only be played in church.  Just sayin.

** My children love to announce their bowel movements to anyone within ear shot.

** Every afternoon should involve margaritas.

** Despite what I might think, God does not give me more than I can handle.

Just Call Us The Griswolds

Know the great thing about being stuck in a car with your family for 22 hours?  Yeah, me neither.  I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a car by myself for 22 hours, let alone two fighting siblings who have car sickness tendencies and a husband who doesn’t believe in stopping for bathroom breaks. Nevertheless, that’s just what I found myself doing this past weekend as we loaded up the family truckster to make our way down to Florida for spring break.

With the car weighted down with snacks, DVD’s, video games, magazines, and 5,000 bags of luggage, we set off on the 1300 mile trek.  And sure enough, the “Are we there yet?” chants started in before we even made it out of downtown Chicago.  (Ok, so I’ll admit that I might have been a part of the chanting squad too, so don’t judge.)  What the holy hell did we do to pass all that time, you ask?  Well, my son was happier than Tiger Woods at a whore house since he got to play his Nintendo DS for literally eleven straight hours that day.  I don’t know how on earth the kid didn’t develop a permanent crick in his neck from looking down for so long.  My daughter watched movie after movie, while I tweeted away the miles on my phone.  We were all doing a happy dance when we finally stopped for the night in Tennessee.

Surprisingly, the pukes didn’t set in until day two of our journey, when I happened to glance in the back seat to find my daughter looking like Casper the ghost.  I somehow managed to grab a plastic bag just in time to catch her tossed cookies.  And I gotta say that the girl’s a freaking rock star, too, because she downed a McD’s cheeseburger less than thirty minutes later and kept it down the whole rest of the way.  I also shocked myself in somehow managing to read three Us magazines in the car without feeling like I was gonna polish my shoes.

By the time we FINALLY got to Florida, we were all cross-eyed, jelly-legged, and pretty freaking sick of each other, and our car looked like a damn battle field with all the food wrappers, crumbs and water bottles strung about.  But HALLE-FLIPPING-LUJAH!  We had finally reached our destination!  And the thanks we’ve gotten in return for those 22 hours of blood, sweat, and tears?  Two days of clouds and now rain — Mother Nature better get out of her bitchy mood, or I may have to punch a moose in the face.

The Sexting Experiment

     A while back, my husband and I got into a discussion about this whole “sexting” phenomenon.  With all the talk about it in the media, we were both saying we felt like we should really see what all the hype was about.  (Perhaps we felt a little left out?) Anyway, we don’t want our kids to think they can EVER EVER get away with this when they’re teenagers, so decided we should give it a go ourselves so as to be better educated <ahem> on the latest trends.  We thought we’d be one step ahead of the game and all.  And let’s just say that my first couple of experiences with it were not quite as “sexy” as I’d had in mind.

     I guess I completely forgot about my whole suck-ass ability to take a decent freaking picture with my iPhone to save my damn life.  I’m always chopping off heads or accidentally moving my hand, creating the world’s most unidentifiable, blurry photo ever known to man-kind.  And to try to take a picture of myself?  Well, that’s a whole other story in and of itself.  I can never figure out how just to angle my arm so that I can actually get myself in the picture.  Even if I stand in front of a mirror, I still somehow manage to eff it up.  So, you can imagine just how jacked up a self-took naughty photo might potentially be.  And that’s just what happened on my first attempt at this sexting thing.

     We were coming back from a weekend road trip when I thought I’d sneak a quick pic of myself on one of our bathroom breaks.  I planned to surprise my husband and give him a little sum’n sum’n to think about on the long, long drive back home.  (What a nice wife I am, right?)  So I was in a stall trying like hell to position my iPhone just so, which turned out to be a damn near impossible task, and I was getting more and more frustrated by the second. Wouldn’t ya know that I picked the skinniest stall in all the friggin’ land?  No matter how I tried to position myself, I could not get the “angle” I wanted. When I finally had it focused, I lost my grip on the phone and gasped in horror as I watched it tumbling toward the toilet.  Like a game of Hot Potato, it bounced from hand to hand before I was eventually able to get a firm hold on it.  Needless to say, my first attempt at sexting was a big, fat failure.

     Never one to give up without a fight, though, I decided to give it another try one day when my hubby was at work.  I figured an impromptu pic from me would surely brighten up a boring old day at the office for him.  It took me about 10,000 tries before I got just the right shot I was going for, but I eventually was able to get what I thought was a pretty damn good image.  I typed a quick text message and hit “Send‘, feeling quite proud of my technology skills for a brief moment.  I was sure that I’d instantly get a return text saying something to the nature of, “Holy shit!  You’re the best wife ever, and I want to shower you with diamonds.”  However, one hour later, I still hadn’t heard a single flipping thing from my husband.  I started to wig out that maybe I’d sent it to the wrong person. Dear God, what if I’d accidentally tweeted it?  Or what if his phone was lying on his desk and someone picked it up and saw more of me than they were ever hoping to?  I frantically searched my phone and sent my hubby four different texts to see if he’d ever received it. Thirty AGONIZING minutes later, I finally heard back from him saying he’d been stuck in a meeting but was pleasantly surprised to find my message.  I told him to enjoy it cause the near heart attack he’d given me had pretty much sucked all the fun out of that sexting experience for me.

     So, for now, I think I’d better just stick with my crooked little action shots of the kids and the dog on the old cell phone.  It’d be just my luck that a very incriminating picture of me would somehow end up in the hands of someone like the coach of my son’s baseball team.  Talk about throwing a guy a curve ball….

Gas Station Gag

     When I was traveling on the road over this past weekend, I certainly had my fair share of gas stations, that’s for damn tootin’ sure. Since I seem to have the world’s smallest bladder, I unfortunately had to make many stops along the way.  I tried to be selective when picking a facility to visit, but sometimes when Mother Nature comes a callin’, you just gotta do what you gotta do, even if that means peeing in a filth-ridden shitcube.  

     There are certain gas stations that I try to avoid at any possible cost, no matter how badly I may need to pee.  For example, if I see any sign whatsoever that a filling station serves some sort of fried chicken or the like, I simply cross my legs and keep on driving. There’s nothing I hate more than walking into a place smelling all good and clean and coming out smelling like the bottom of a freaking deep frier.  That crap gets stuck in your clothes, in your hair, and even in your damn skin. I mean, if I’m gonna smell like a big old bucket of KFC, then I’d at least like to have eaten a friggin’ leg or two.  The absolute worst, though, is when you’ve thoroughly checked the building’s exterior to make sure there’s no indication of fried food being served on the inside, only to have your nostrils bitch-slapped by a blast of stale grease when you walk through the doors.  I think there should be a law that requires such places to post a very visible outdoor sign that says, “We smell like ass.”  

     Once I’ve found a joint that finally seems to be acceptable, it’s anyone’s guess what the conditions of the restrooms are actually gonna be. You know you’re in for a nose-holding-pee-as-fast-as-you-possibly-can-and-get-the-hell-out-of-there experience when you walk into a stall and see shit smeared on the wall behind the toilet.  That’s never a good sign of cleanliness.  And you know you’re gonna be skipping the whole soap process when the only thing around is a lathered up bar on the sink that has a long, black hair stuck to it.  And if you’re lucky enough to find a bathroom that does have a dispenser of soap, you often discover that the only thing to dry your hands with is one of those rolling cloth towel contraptions that’s stuck to the wall, in which case you have to just go with the air dry method cause God only knows what’s been rubbed on that cloth.  

     The gas station bathrooms that totally crack me up are the ones that try to disguise their nastiness by hanging some stupid-looking basket of fake greenery above the mirror or by setting a silk bouquet of flowers by the sink or by hanging a watercolor “painting” of the beach on the wall or by setting out a jar of putrid-smelling potpourri. Look fools, you ain’t kidding nobody with those sad little decorations. It’s still glaringly obvious that you need to get some Ty-D-Bowl cleaner up in there and go to freaking town.  Those toilets don’t clean themselves, ya know.

     If at all possible, I usually prefer to stop at a restaurant instead, since their bathrooms tend to be a little more tolerable.  However, those aren’t always a safe bet either.  It really is a total crapshoot (pun intended) when you’re out on the road.  It’s better to just hope for the best and expect the worst cause finding a clean, non-smelling one is like finding a navy blue sock in a drawer full of black ones.

The Sting of Reality

     Know what really sucks about coming home from vacation after a week? EVERYTHING!  Even though we were just down at my parents’ house for a visit, I have truly been living in fantasy land for seven days now.  I didn’t have to clean, do laundry or go grocery shopping!  I had people cooking for me every single night!  I had other people to entertain my kids besides myself!  Wait — what the hell was I thinking?  Why is it that I came home again??!!

     The single most unappealing thing about coming home for me is the unpacking.  I absolutely loathe putting away all the wrinkled, unworn clothes that have gotten all balled up in our suitcases.  I never know if I should wash them again or just pray that the wrinkles somehow magically disappear while hanging in the closet.  Plus, any time we take a car trip, I always pack five thousand different snacks for the kids that also have to be returned to their rightful jam-packed resting place in the pantry.  And every time I do, I wonder why on earth I packed so many damn snacks in the first place!  I also end up kicking myself for telling my kids to pack some things in their backpacks to take along with them.  They always end up cramming their bags full of the most random things they can possibly find, which then end up scattered throughout the floor of the car by the time we finally get home.    

     As if the unpacking wasn’t bad enough in and of itself, there’s also the insane amount of laundry that has piled up from our week in make-believe world.  I typically just cram all of our dirty laundry into one giant trash bag to bring home with us.  So, I then get the unbridled pleasure of sorting through the giant mess of darks, whites and every other color in the rainbow.  I find myself wondering if skipping laundry for a week was all that it was cracked up to be.  

     And then, there’s the inevitable trip to the good old grocery store. Being gone for a week equals a refrigerator full of nothing but condiments.  I typically remember this as I’m about to start preparing a meal for my kids, and then I realize that, OH CRAP, WE HAVE NO FOOD IN THE HOUSE!  The last thing I want to do after coming off an out of town trip is to think about meal planning.  I am soooo NOT a meal planner.  My parents had every single meal planned out for the entire week, and I’m not just talking main dishes — I’m talking side dishes, desserts, and the whole nine yards! I couldn’t even tell you what we’re having for dinner tonight, let alone in two days.  It was so nice to have someone else who was willing to do all that thinking for me for a change.  Now that it’s back to reality, I get to meander through the grocery store trying to rack my brain with menu selections.  

     All of this back-to-the-real-world stuff can really knock your socks off. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, and buried in things to do. Do you think maybe I should just go back to bed and pretend I’m still on vacation?            

                                     < S-M-A-C-K! >

 Well, thanks a lot, reality, for clearing that up for me….

Entertain Me

     After our horrendous road trip to the grandparents’ house, the first day of the trip didn’t pan out to be much better.  Normally, when we are here, my kids can pretty much always find something to do, since my parents have stocked their house FULL of toys.  This time, however, my daughter, in particular, could not stay entertained by anything for longer than five minutes.  It was much more fun to follow me around and whine about being bored.  And since both grandparents had to work, I had the great honor of heading up the entertainment committee for the entire morning and afternoon.  

     Luckily, my son has been in seventh heaven since we got here, thanks to the Atari and Spongebob video games his Grammy bought.  The child literally has holed himself up in the guest bedroom to play for as long as we will let him.  The bad thing about this is that my daughter has now lost her built-in playmate.  So, to preoccupy her, I think I must’ve pulled out every single toy, puzzle, game and art project I could possibly find, only to have her get bored with it after just a few minutes.  It was a true test of this mama’s patience level.

     I then decided to try some outdoor activities by pulling out all the outside toys to the backyard.  When I had finally gotten my daughter settled in the sandbox, I went to open the back door and discovered that we had locked ourselves out of the house.  I knocked and knocked on the back door to absolutely no avail, because my son was completely zoned out in video la-la land.  Even ringing the doorbell was a total waste of time.  Thank goodness my parents have a ranch-style home, because I had to actually bang on the guest bedroom windows and yell his name for him to finally acknowledge me.  By the time I got in the house and unlocked the back door, my daughter had naturally decided that she didn’t want to play in the backyard anymore.  I thought I would scream. 

     I was so relieved when my parents finally got home from work.  My dog and pony show had run its couse. The reinforcements had arrived, and I happily passed over the torch.

Road Trips + Us = Bad News

    

     Well, as you may have noticed, I didn’t get around to adding an additional post yesterday.  Our road trip was such a long and grueling event, that I couldn’t muster up the energy to do much of anything.  After the normal six hour trip turned into well over a seven hour one, my brain was pretty much fried by the time we rolled into the grandparents’ driveway last night.

     Luckily, my daughter was pretty content watching movies the whole way down.  The girl would happily be a couch potato if I would let her.  My son, on the other hand, decided that he had no interest in the dvd player.  Instead, he wanted to play Uno and complained the entire time because I wouldn’t play with him.  I tried my damnedest to explain that it was next to impossible for Mama to “draw four” while manning a speeding vehicle down the interstate at 70 mph. 

     In addition, my kids started asking me about an hour into the trip if we were almost there and proceeded to ask me that same question every ten minutes for the next six hours.  And when I would give them an ETA, they would moan and groan and carry on about that being too long to wait.  It made for such soothing background noise in the car, let me tell ya.

     And when we stopped for gas or bathroom breaks, I tried explaining that the faster we were in and out, the faster we’d get to Grammy’s.  I might as well have been talking to a tree though, because each stop grew longer and longer.  One particular McDonald’s stop turned into almost a thirty minute ordeal.  After both kids and I had used the bathroom, we got all the way to the car before my daughter decided to announce that she now needed to poop.  After we trekked all the way back to the restrooms, I felt a Diet Coke was in order.  I saw that the line was from hell inside and opted to go to the drive-thru instead.  After waiting ten more minutes in the drive-thru lane, I got my drink and finally got back on the road again.  When I took that long-awaited first sip, I felt the steam coming out of my ears.  They had given me a regular Coke instead of a diet.  Figures. 

     As if all this wasn’t enough, I also had to deal with my twins taking turns telling me who was feeling car sick — seven hours of wondering who was going to puke first!  My daughter ended up being the winner of this race, ten minutes from our final destination.  Thank God I had a plastic sack in the car, because she was able to manage to get it all in the bag.  I then had to pull off the road ONCE AGAIN to throw away the puke bag and give us all some fresh air. 

     I was so glad to finally arrive at my parents’ house, even if it was over an hour later than I had planned.  My back was in a bazillion knots and my eyes were somewhat cross-eyed, but I was so relieved to no longer be trapped in that box on four wheels.  I’ve decided that my husband is going to have to move down here if he wants to see us again, because I don’t think I’m mentally prepared to do it all again in eight days….

So Much To Do, So Little Time

    

     Today’s post is, unfortunately, going to have to be a short one. This is the kids’ last official day of school, although I’d hardly even call it a day when they only go for an hour and a half.  I just dropped them off, and I’m gonna have to turn right back around and get them. As emotional and mentally exhausted as I am with this being the last time I ever drop them off at kindergarten <wipe tear>, I should’ve just stayed there and waited. We are then headed down to the grandparents’ house for a week-long visit. My husband will not be going, so I have the extreme pleasure of road tripping solo with two kids, both of whom, as you might recall, tend to get car sick.  I’m praying that the gods are on my side, and we don’t have an explosion of puke or a poop in the pants to freshen the air in the car for a six hour drive.  If I haven’t lost my mind somewhere along the highway, I will try to post another entry, chalked full of the oh-so exciting details of our trip.  Stay tuned….