My second column for www.mentorpatch.com was conveniently about our LONG LONG LONG (and long-awaited) trip to North Carolina.
"Can I hava snack? Can I?"
"Did you see dat? Did you?"
"Is my baby brudder sweeping? Is he?"
Two-and-a-half-year-old Adelaide decided to see how many questions she could ask before I went bonkers during our trip to North Carolina to visit family.
Sadie, 6, and Josie, 5, have been making this trip since they were born. They listened to their Little House on the Prairie CDs, trashed the back seat, sang songs, played with the dirty gravel they painstakingly chose from the Bob Evans parking lot, practiced their Southern accent ("over yonder," "I caint!" and “don’t pull my hay-urh!”), worked some dot-to-dots and then conked out, drooling on their pillow pets. They learned long ago how to make the best of the situation.
I, however, learned something new this trip: traveling with four kids is hard. Since I'm still nursing my 4-month-old – it's almost impossible to breast-feed at 75 miles an hour – what should've been eight hours turned into 10.
Whoever said getting there is half the fun obviously never had very much fun when they got there.
After 13 trips to gas station potties, two juice box explosions, a headache, three fights, one finger mashed in a window and a trail of goldfish crackers on the floor of the minivan, I turned into what my kids call "Mean Old Mommy."
Mean Old Mommy decreed mandatory quiet time until we counted 20 green highway signs. Mean Old Mommy refused to turn off Amos Lee in favor of the more popular Artist Currently Known as Raffi. Mean Old Mommy chewed gum and did not share. Mean Old Mommy is, well, mean.
Four-month-old Jedidiah's one major crying fit just happened to coincide with the beginning of everyone else’s nap. His feeding postponed by 15 minutes because of a missed exit, my sweet little boy retaliated against my starvation tactics with eight minutes of crying, four minutes of wailing, and three minutes of "What kind of a mother are you?" in baby language.
All the racket meant that chatty Adelaide slept for all of 10 minutes out of those 10 long hours. For the other 9 hours and 50 minutes, she talked. And talked.
“Could you please be quiet for two minutes? Just two?” Mean Old Mommy asked. Adelaide crossed her arms, squinted her eyes in the rearview mirror and said, “Well, dat wasn’t vewy nice.” She was right. It wasn't.
Finally across the state line, I was relieved to announce (in my Normal Mommy voice) that, yes, we were finally in North Carolina.
She studied me a few seconds, looked around her and said, "No, we are not. We are still in de car."
