The journey of a thousand miles

Oh ma gah.  Life is driving me crazy.  I feel like all I do is wait at the door so we can leave the house but while I wait I'm also forced to tell people over and over - "Put on your shoes.  You too.  Wait, no, you had your shoes on, what happened?  Put on your shoes."  With one kid it was manageable, with two a bit more difficult, with three, forget about being anywhere on time and sane.  Even when we're leaving to go somewhere fun they can still suck the life force from me so that by the time we make it to pulling out of the parking lot I'm really not in the mood to bother with having fun. 

Violet is the worst.  She has to very carefully choose her outfit for the day, one piece at a time, with some sort of dance maneuvers happening in between (this is for another blog post, but she has some serious Elaine Benes action going on).  Plus there is the eternal Violet monologue we have to listen to - she constantly chatters at us, although, it is interspersed with nonsensical singing.  You might recognize some of the lyrics from various Spongebob episodes or Disney Princess songs, or Glee cover of a Cee Lo Green song - but there will be absolutely no recognizable tune.  Once the clothes are picked out, then you have to go through the agony of actually getting them on her body.  At least she willingly brushes her teeth (once she finally makes it to the bathroom), with Zoey it's practically like waterboarding - actually that might be an easier way to get her teeth clean.

When it's time for shoes, you have to wait for her to find the perfect pair and thanks to a wonderful friend who sends us beautiful hand-me-downs, we have about a dozen choices.  They have to be put on the wrong feet, every single time.  I know she knows what shoe goes on which foot, but this is part of her whole schtick.  I tell her to switch them, then she comes back after taking both shoes off and then putting them both back on the wrong feet again and sweetly says, "Is this the right foot?" 

With the shoes finally on, we open the front door.  Wait, wait, wait.  A toy has to come with us.  It's a different toy every time and it's always always a toy that requires a search party.  Every once in a while I get frustrated enough to say, "No toy!  Let's go!"  But the crying and tantrums that ensue are usually not worth it.  So, find the toy, head to the car where she has to do the seat belt herself except I have to tighten it because she's still in a 5-point harness thing and can't reach the belt to pull it tight, so I have to stand there tapping my toes trying not to lose my mind.  (And don't forget, while all this is happening with just Violet, I'm also fielding all the crap that the other two are throwing at me.)

Finally, I'm in the driver's seat where I realize I've forgotten to bring the crucial whatever that the whole trip out of the house was about, so I have to run back inside and find it. 

Ah, now we're on the road.  It's 10:30am, we've been up since 6:00am - only four and a half hours between boarding the space shuttle to crazy and lift-off, not too bad.

Take action now!

Maryland recently passed a law that you can only use your cell phone while driving if you have a hands free device.  It's a second tier sort of offense - you can't be stopped for doing it, you can only be ticketed if you're breaking the law in some other way also.  This is an important safety measure for drivers, but I think there is a greater menace to our safety on the roads:

Children.

Think about it - have you ever seen the woman driving the car in front of you suddenly disappear for a few seconds before bobbing back up into place?  Have you seen some pyscho swerving the mini-van all over the road?  It's because her kid just dropped her Bouncin' Babbles on the floor and won't stop screaming about it.  Or maybe it's because everybody's clamoring for a snack that has to be handed back.  Or their sister won't stop touching them so Mom has to reach back with a karate chop to separate them.  Or the damn Red Robin balloon won't stop attaching itself to the back of Mom's head.

Measures need to be taken.  Since it isn't really practical to ban children from cars, I think mini-vans and other family-oriented cars should come standard with soundproof plexi-glass between the front and back seats.  Better yet - it should be something opaque with maybe a small window so you can use the rear view mirror, but not enough of a view that you have to see all the madness going on back there. 

Call your congress representative today - get something done about this now!

Life is a highway

Why is it the drive home always takes longer than the drive there?  Yesterday's long long long car ride home from Christmas at Grandma's really sort of epitomizes how the rest of the holiday went for us.  There was grumpiness, chaos, comedy and barf.

Here's the scene:  we've just gotten back on the road from our delicious and satisfying Burger King lunch, the big girls are arguing over what DVD they want to watch.  Zoey gives a cry and when I turn to see what the fuss is about she starts spewing all over herself.  Chaos ensues - Zoey is crying.  Greg is trying to decide if we can make it to the next exit before stopping, Lorelei fanning the putrid air and telling us how gross it is.  Violet is coughing and crying, "I don wanna barrrrrrrrf Mommy!"  I'm chanting, "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay." 

It was not okay. 

Greg took the first exit we came to, which turned about to be the on-ramp for I-64.  Crap.  So, we cleaned up as much as we could on the ramp between Interstates 81 and 64.  When we finally made it to a Sheetz, I made the quick decision that the outfit Zoey had been wearing was going straight into the trash can.  I pulled the car seat out and we did a more thorough cleaning - we still had a long way to go.  

An hour and 20 minutes later we were back on the right road to home.

A little further down the road, very shortly (and I emphasize the "very") after we'd made a bathroom stop, Violet starts yelling about needing to pee again.  We're on a 2 lane country road with only farms, keep going and going, get on our next road, still nothing, going and going - finally about 20 miles later we come to a town.  I remember from our last trek this way that the gas station on our side had outdoor bathrooms that were really horrifying, so we opt for the 7-11 on the opposite side of the road.  I run in with V, search around.  You are kidding me, no bathroom.  Back in the car and across the side street to the A&W we go.  Run in - Violet starts gushing about how "cute" the bathroom is and is not acting at all like it's urgent.  Gotta tell you - the bathroom was not cute at all.

I am so glad to be at home.  I don't know when we'll be making our next car trip, but it's going to be a little while.