I’m a road trip girl.
Always have been. My mother is terrified of flying, so every vacation consisted
of piling into a car that was inevitably too small and driving hundreds of
miles to mediocre destinations. But I loved it. Even the 24 hour we’re-not-stoppin’-unless-you’re-dyin’
drive home lent its own kind of life altering excitement.
Now, as a parent
myself, I still love road trips. Well, really, I love the idea of road trips. Road
tripping in the midst of this borderline hellish endeavor called parenting that
I’ve gotten myself into, is a lot different than sitting in the back seat of my
parents car, wind in my hair, sun on my face, ginormous headphones plugged into
my Walkman. SO. FREAKING. DIFFERENT.
But I’m a sucker. One
trying road trip after another and I keep suggesting them. Insisting even. And my husband. He obliges, and then waits
for it all to fall apart. He never says “I told you so.” But I swear I feel him
thinking it. A lot.
For my daughter’s
tenth birthday we bought her tickets to a concert in Boston. Because the
concert fell on Columbus Day weekend, I naturally wanted to make a weekend out
of it. A road trip if you will. I was determined to make our 24-ish hours away
from home a memory. One that I was
willing to photograph and revisit.
Yet I should have
known. My husband knew. I think the baby knew too. A drive that should have
taken a little over two hours took nearly four. We stopped four times. FOUR
TIMES. A rest stop. A liquor store. And
the breakdown lane of a major highway, twice. Nothing says adventure like
running circles around your van rearranging car seats and changing poopy
diapers while cars zip by at 75 miles per hour. Really gets the blood pumping.
Once we got into the
city I was positive that things would run more smoothly. I’m pretty sure that
it was as I unclenched my fists and started breathing regularly that we hit
bumper to bumper traffic. In. The. Tunnel. And then our oldest boy announced
that he had to pee. Like really bad. I let my mind wander back 13 or so years
to my bachelorette party; stuck in traffic and intoxicated. And my sister had
to pee. So she jumped out of the limo and peed behind a dumpster in a parking
lot. Cause we’re classy like that. But then she had to run alongside the limo
because traffic had started moving. I wasn’t about to tell my kid to hop out of
the van, pee against the tunnel wall (hello backsplash) and then hope he could
catch us as we motored away.
So we did the next
best thing. He peed in my empty Dunkin Donuts coffee cup. Like a professional.
Part of me feels like my parenting leans heavily towards the “enabling my kids
to act like high school idiots” style. Still, part of me was quite proud of
myself. I was able to contort my post pregnancy body into the back seat of the
van. I was able to hold the cup and not gag. To replace the cap without
spilling a drop. To growl at his sisters to stop frigging laughing, and peeking,
and screaming “he’s peeing in Mom’s coffee!” I hope we’re not faced with the
urgency of that situation again, but if we are, next time I swear I’ll remember
to throw the cup away. Not leave it sloshing around in the van for two days. Potholes
take on a whole new level of hell when there’s 16ozs of pee in the car.
Dunkin Donuts styrofoam.
Not just for coffee anymore.
The rest of the
afternoon went relatively well. Aside from the fact that we walked two blocks
in the wrong direction looking for my daughter’s favorite restaurant. Then asked
directions, and continued to walk another two blocks…still in the wrong
direction. Cause we’re geographically gifted like that. Nothing says “this is
awesome” quite like your GPS barking at you that you’ve reached your
destination, but when you look around all you see are alleyways and a parking
garage. Eff you GPS. You failed us. Again.
Upon checking in to
our hotel I was reminded just how out of place my family can be sometimes. The hotel
was pretty swanky. We had to smuggle a couple of kids in, because technically
we exceeded the maximum room occupancy. Also, six people in a room with two
double beds leads to renting a rollaway bed. So there was kinda the time I was
sitting on the toilet talking to my mother on the phone, when I heard a knock
on the door. I assumed it was my husband coming back for his forgotten wallet,
or better yet a forgotten child. Nope. A porter. With the rollaway bed. We were both stunned.
And then my heart
broke for my little girl. As the big kids left with dad she once again left
out. And she was sad. But she kept saying “thank you Mom. Thank you for letting
me come to this hotel.” To make it up to her she had McDonald’s for dinner and
a pre-bed dip in the oddly small rooftop pool. Except she nearly drown. She
wanted to see if she could touch bottom without her Puddle Jumper on. The pool
was 3 ½ feet deep. I told her to walk down the steps and quickly touch the
bottom. She did just that. And she could touch, and with her head thrown back
and her little nose in the air so she could breathe. And I told her to come
back. But she decided to bob and tiptoe away from the edge of the pool. And
then she panicked. And started flailing. And kinda drowning I think. And as I
was kneeling at the edge of the pool, arm outstretched as far as it could go,
pleading with her to kick her little feet I realized one thing. I’d forgotten
to snap my nursing tank back together again. And then I realized I was wearing
a painfully stretched-out-to-East-Gish scoop neck t-shirt on top of my nursing
tank. And saving Gillian quickly became more about saving my ladies from
completely falling out of my shirt. In front of the freakishly hairy Dad, who
waded to our side of the pool to see what all the commotion was. It was a
spectacle. I saved Gillian. But not my pride.
Wanting
to play it cool I let Gillian swim around with her floaties on for a while
after. The other family left. And their kid took our room key with them. So
there was also the time my sopping wet four year old, shivering in just a
bathing suit and wet towel, my four month old, overtired and cranky, and I,
fresh off yet another boob baring experience, had to make our way down nine
floors, across the very full lobby and up to the front desk. I hadn’t gotten
the entire story out before the woman kindly held up her hand, asked for our
room number and issued a new key.
Ultimately the big kids had a
great time at the concert with their Dad. And ultimately I held down the fort
in a mostly respectable fashion. It wasn’t even that annoying that our hotel
was nestled up next to a major medical center in the middle of Boston. We
hardly noticed the constant sirens at all.
In the morning we faced the
thought of our return trip with great dignity. Unlike the way we faced the free
breakfast. Four times. And maybe once more for the road. Heading down to eat
our weight in free food my family looked like a pack of drunks. No, worse. We
looked like a pack of worn out drunks. Not drunks that have had a good time.
Just the opposite. Drunks with mostly mismatched jammies and
inappropriate footwear. The hotel manager gave a visible shiver when he
realized we were there for breakfast. Again. He was a tiny little man.
But the kids ate. A bagel caught on fire in the toaster (so not our fault)! Then they swam. Someone smacked someone else in the face “accidentally” and there was a bloody nose. So then we left. Could not get out of there fast enough. And we hadn't made it one block and they were asking when we'd be home. But the baby slept. And the big kids reminisced. And it only took two hours.
