How Was Your Day?

Ellie’s sister spent the past several days with us. She was being a good big sister and taking her sister shopping for Vital School Supplies, like flannel pants and cell phone accessories, while saving their father the pain of going bra shopping. The original plan was to have Ellie drive her sister back home Sunday, stay overnight, and drive back Monday. I knew she didn’t have the stamina to drive there and back in one day, so I offered to accompany her to help drive. She declined, though, saying she wanted to spend some time with her family, which was just as well since six hours in the car in one day would seriously disrupt Abbie’s routine.

Sunday morning around 9am, just as I was planning a blissful onion-filled dinner with some dessert crammed with chocolate, Ellie asked if my offer to help drive was still good. Her father was sick with a nasty bug, and she didn’t want to risk catching it by spending the night in his house. I checked my watch, considered how I could possibly keep Abbie on some semblance of her schedule, and said we’d better hit the road.

Less than an hour later, we hit on the road, which was pretty remarkable considering that at 9am nothing was packed, I hadn’t showered, and her sister was still asleep. With a valiant effort that involved ignoring Abbie’s whining with boredom, we managed to fill the car in less than an hour with the approximately 91,984,351 Abbie-related things we would need for a day trip, forgetting only a few minor items. The stage was set for a perfect, quick day trip, making only the occasional necessary stop.

Ha! We stopped twice before leaving the city limits to purchase supplementary back-to-school supplies, and a made a third stop at 11am for lunch. This stop completely threw Abbie’s schedule off since she normally eats about half her lunch at 11:30, naps, then finishes her lunch when she wakes up between 1:30 and 3:00. It also threw my schedule off since I normally eat lunch when she finishes hers in a meal late enough to be called lunner. When you’re on the road, though, you eat when you can, so I stuffed Abbie full of milk and an entire Fruit and Yogurt Parfait, minus the granola. I kept her granola for my Fruit and Yogurt Parfait, which I grabbed with a sandwich on our way out the door so I could eat my lunch as late as possible. Then Ellie ate her original granola and I was down to a single yet tasty serving of granola. As they say, “easy come, easy go,” or in French, “il y a un brouillard dans le jambon.” Before we left I took her into the bathroom to change her diaper and discovered the most major forgotten item: A changing pad. Unlike about a year ago, Abbie is now pretty good about not peeing while being changed, so a changing pad is mostly to protect her from the changing surface. In someone’s fairly clean home, she doesn’t need too much protection; in a restaurant without a changing table in rural Iowa where I have to change her on a floor covered with microorganisms nasty enough to carry her away if I turn my back, I missed that changing pad. I had to use the diaper bag as a makeshift changing pad to save her from bacterial abduction.

The original plan was to have her sleep in the car for about two hours, waking up fresh as a daisy when we arrived at their family. I thought she might wake up at most 30 minutes early, but the three of us could entertain her in the car for that long. The plan started well, as she quickly dozed off with nary peep. After 30 minutes of peaceful napping, we hit a big bump, the bounce activated a battery-powered toy, and she turned wide stinking awake a full hour before her minimum acceptable nap. Amazingly, with lots of singing and pointing and singing and reading and singing and playing and singing, we drove the full 90 minutes without too much screaming, though I may have developed a violent allergy to the sound of Elmo’s voice.

We arrived at their family’s home expecting Abbie to be a screaming, whining, tired mess instead of her usual screaming, whining mess. She mysteriously decided to be pleasant for two entire hours smiling at people, playing nicely by herself, and prancing about the living room. If only she could behave that well at home. We left their home about 4pm, and prayed that Abbie would sleep during the 30-minute car ride to see my parents because, hey, we’re in town for a quick day trip, why not stop by for dinner? Sleep she did, again quickly falling asleep with nary a sound. She was so sound asleep that she didn’t wake up when we arrived at my parents, so I left mommy and daughter in the car with the air conditioner running while I grabbed my parents. After a few minutes, Ellie brought Abbie into the house, and she must not have woken up well because she started screaming like a photographer shot with a pellet gun outside Britney Spears’s house. Part of it was probably stranger anxiety because she refused to calm down until she was back in the car. Once she saw my parents again at the restaurant, she started screaming again. Only after spending several minutes in close proximity to my parents, with a good portion of that time spent being fed by them, did she calm from outright hysteria to general unease. By the time we left, she tolerated my parents holding her, but just barely.

We left town a little after 6pm. Even with the newly minted interstate speed limit of 70, it still took us almost three and a half hours to drive back to Des Moines. Part of the reason it took so long was we needed to stop for gas at a station where people were lined up for the privilege to pay $2.299 a gallon. We made use of the down time to pick up some snacky treats, including a fountain drink for myself. I shared this drink with Abbie to keep her occupied on the way home. I knew she could drink through a straw ever since Ellie tried sharing her strawberry malt with her and she sucked the milky goodness through the straw with the voracity of a Hoover. Alas, all the pop in the world couldn’t keep her content for the entire trip, and neither could pointing, reading, or even singing. About 20 minutes from home, she suddenly degenerated into a blubbery mess, desperate to escape her car seat and return to her idyllic life of tearing book pages and chasing kitties. After The Longest 20 Minutes Ever, listening to her scream uncontrollably the entire time, we arrived home, and Abbie ran into her room as happy as a dutiful girlfriend leaving the “Duke of Hazzard,” and proceeded to read without caring that she could finally drink her milk (an hour late) or go to sleep (30 minutes late).

So I guess what I’m trying to say is I was busy yesterday and didn’t have time to blog.