Because you wanted to know

This past weekend, we took our first road trip with both of the kids.  We made it there and back and we had a lovely time visiting family and friends, which is what really matters.  But this was a TRIP to remember. 

We decided to leave at the early hour of 4am on Friday so as to give us a few hours of driving while the kids were still sleeping.  But we ended up staying up too late the night before and we slept in.  We left around 6am.  The first few hours were uneventful, which is a good thing.  Close to 11am, we were nearing the “halfway” point, the Pennsylvania-Ohio border.  Matt told me that my car was pulling to the right, but I dismissed it.  Of course not… I would have noticed, right?  15 minutes later, we were on the side of the road with a completely flat tire.  Ouch.  My wonderful husband got out and set about changing it (hooray for a spare tire in the trunk!).  It wasn’t easy, but he did it.  Meanwhile, I nursed Lucy and entertained Henry.  Did I mention it was really hot out?  Probably upper 80’s at least.  We were pretty much baking, both inside and outside the car.

With the spare in place, Matt took out the jack and we realized that the spare tire was nearly flat as well (15 psi… yikes).  We were two miles from the toll booth for the Ohio turnpike, so we limped along the shoulder until we got there.  Matt parked in the employee lot so we were safe and out of the way.  The nice folks in the office called a tow truck for us.  And we waited.  At one point, Henry and I got out and stood next to the toll booths and waved to the cars driving by.  Kind of entertaining for a few minutes. 

The tow truck arrived at about 12:30pm, accompanied by a state trooper.  Matt chatted with the trooper and the tow truck driver and then came back to the car and started pulling out the car seats.  I was a little confused, but went along with it.  Clearly we weren’t riding in the tow truck.  Oddly enough, they don’t come equipped to handle four extra passengers.  Apparently, that’s what the police officer was there for.  So we shoved both car seats and the diaper bag in the back of the cruiser (Henry’s seat was fine, but Lucy’s was by no means installed “properly”) and I climbed in next to the kids.  Matt went with the car to get a new tire and the police officer took the rest of us to the next service plaza.  (Not one of the nice service plazas on the Ohio Turnpike… just the little one with the McDonalds)

Two car seats and two kids and a tired Mommy then sat in the rest stop for nearly two hours.  Much screaming and tantrum activity ensued.  I’ll spare you the details.  Let’s just say that there have been few times in the 10 years I’ve known Matt when I’ve been more grateful to see his face than I was when he finally got there. 

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful.  We were actually making decent time.  And then sometime shortly after we go into Michigan, Henry got fussy and proceeded to vomit all over himself.  We were not about to stop again, so I wiped up the mess and took off the dirty shirt, which pretty much took care of the problem.  Ok, not the problem with his tummy.  We’re still not sure what caused that.  We were ready to blame it on carsickness, but it happened again on Sunday night (no driving involved) and there have been a lot of nasty diapers in the meantime.  Whatever it is, it’s got my little toddler so worn out that he has now been sleeping for 3 hours, which is the only reason why I am still writing this.  Better go wake him up or else he might not sleep tonight! 

(In case you were wondering, the drive home was much less eventful.  It did involve much more crying from both kids in the car, but at least they both saved their massively poopy diapers for after our arrival back at home.  For which I am quite grateful.)