Of course, while we were only 30 minutes away from the house, Michael asked if we were in Maryland yet. So at that moment I knew that this was going to be a long trip. Sporadically throughout the rest of the journey, Michael would ask me what town we were in. Sometimes we would actually be in a town, and I would tell him the name of that town or city. But a lot of the time, we were on the interstate in between towns and cities, so I would just start making up stuff. I would tell him we were in Green Grass, or Tall Tree, or Gray Rock. I would basically come up with a name of anything that I saw, and turn it into the name of the town.
The journey is supposed to be about 12 hours from my house to my grandmother's house in Maryland. I knew that the trip was going to take longer because we were going to have to stop every 3 hours to breastfeed Avery. Breastfeeding her can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. I knew that that would add time to our trip for every time that we had to stop, but I was hoping that we would either be getting gas or going to the bathroom or getting something to eat at these stops which would maximize our time.
We left on Friday night around 6 p.m., and we drove for 5 hours. We stopped at a hotel around 11 that night and we were in North Georgia. The next day we were supposed to be on the road for 7 hours not including the stops that we would have to make to feed Avery. However, it took us 13 hours on Saturday alone.
Coming home, we left on Tuesday at noon, and drove for 6 hours to get to a location that should have been two hours away. Welcome Thanksgiving traffic in Washington DC. We stopped to visit some family friends in Virginia and had dinner with them. We stayed at their house for 2 hours and then got back on the road and drove for another 3 hours. So that was 9 hours spent in the car on Tuesday. We stopped at a hotel in Western Virginia, not West Virginia. My parents had changed up the routes home in order to avoid Charlotte North Carolina and Atlanta Georgia Thanksgiving traffic. So on Wednesday we got in the car at 7 a.m. and drove all the way through Tennessee and clipped the northwest corner of Georgia before entering into Alabama. It took us a sweet forever to get through Knoxville and Chattanooga. And we pulled into my driveway at 7 p.m. on Wednesday. So the trip home, if you do the math, took us 9 hours on Tuesday and 12 hours on Wednesday. I. Was. Tired.
And here is the real kicker of this entire journey. The week leading up to this trip, I was working feverishly to get Michael better from a stomach bug that he had. He had to be checked out of school early on the Thursday two weeks before Thanksgiving because he wasn't feeling good and his blood sugar would not stay up in a safe range. This can be very dangerous so I had to go get him from school early. When he got home, he got sick to his stomach. Friday was a day off of school anyway, and he got sick again on Saturday morning. He was okay on Sunday, and on Monday we had our Endocrinology appointment. He got sick that morning, but we still went to the appointment and he was fine. He got sick again on Tuesday morning, and stayed home with me that day. On Wednesday he was finally better, and I was pretty sure that the sickness had run its course, so he went to school and was fine. He also went to school Thursday and Friday and was fine those days as well.
I patted myself on the back for getting my child over his sickness just in the nick of time to go on a road trip. The joke was on me.
On Friday mid-morning, my mother in law texted me to say that Noah had a little bit of diarrhea. I was hoping it was just a one-time incident but I was also terrified because I had just gotten one child over being sick just in time for the road trip, and I did not want to have another child get sick on the day of the road trip. So my mother in law suggested that I find some pull-ups if I had any left at the house. Fortunately I have been working on cleaning out the office closet earlier in that week and so I knew exactly where my spare pull-ups were. I pulled them out and they happened to be the perfect size for Noah, which is a total praise so thank you, God. I packed a few in my purse and packed several in Noah's overnight bag and I packed the rest of the packet in the back of the van. There seemed to be no issues anymore once he got home, so I thought maybe we were in the clear and that he just didn't want to stop watching his show to go to the bathroom earlier that day.
We drove for 5 hours that night and got to a hotel in North Georgia. The boys and I shared a double bed, which meant I got about 6 inches of space to sleep on.
Avery's Rock and play bassinet worked out absolutely fantastic, and I absolutely recommend it to any mom who's going to be traveling with a baby 4 months old and younger. Avery was the perfect size for this but I do think that if I had waited another month to use it, she would have been way too tall. Fortunately, I have a nephew on the way (yay to my older brother and his wife!), so I will be giving the Rock and play bassinet to them to use for their new little baby arriving next year.
As I'm laying in bed in the early morning, I hear the all-telling tummy rumbling sounds. I grabbed Noah and I raced into the bathroom and I get him on the potty just in the nick of time. I was devastated. Because although I got him to the bathroom on time, and there were no accidents, I was terrified to continue on the road trip. My parents assured me it was going to be fine, and we would just put Noah in a pull-up. So we went about our business of packing up the hotel room to get ready to go downstairs and eat breakfast. Before we got out of the room, Noah had to go to the bathroom again. He got sick to his stomach again, but everything was fine and no accidents.
We go downstairs for breakfast, and as we're deciding what we want to eat from the continental breakfast layout, Noah thinks he's got to go again. So I pick him up and I raced back up the flight of stairs because this hotel did not have an elevator. I get into the hotel room, and Noah doesn't have to go anymore. I actually thought that was a good sign. We go back downstairs for breakfast, and Noah picks out what he wants. As he and Michael are sitting at the table to eat and my mom is also sitting there holding Avery, Noah starts throwing up on himself. I felt so horrible because there was another family in the little dining area eating, but that mom was so sweet because she looked at me and said that she was the mama of five boys and that it wasn't bothering her at all. So my dad and I are trying to get Noah over a trash can to continue throwing up. He's thrown up all over himself and his clothes. I am a wreck because I'm certain that I'm going to have to sit at this hotel all day with three kids waiting for Aaron to come pick us up while my parents continue on the road trip. So my dad runs out to the van to get Noah's suitcase so that I can change his clothes. My mom assures me that it's going to be fine and that she's not leaving me at that hotel. I get Noah all changed and cleaned up in the hotel room, and I make use of the several plastic bags that I brought with me and the gallon bags that I brought with me and we decided just to press forward on our trip. Noah told us that he had to go to the bathroom about eight times that day. And every single time we would stop and he would try to go but he would either be too afraid of the automatic toilets or they would be too loud or he wouldn't really have to go. So it just made the day take forever.
Noah continued to have diarrhea every single day that we were at my grandma's house. Somehow he made it through the car ride for an hour to Pennsylvania where we rode the Strasburg Railroad. He was absolutely fine and made it all the way back to my grandma's house before he got sick again that night.
On Monday he didn't get sick again until dinner time which I thought was great to go that long between getting sick. On Tuesday we were set to leave at noon and Noah got sick that morning, but it was starting to look a bit better. He made it through the entire car ride that day which put us in the car for 9 hours, along with a two-hour visit at a family friend's house in Virginia. We made it to the hotel in western Virginia, not West Virginia, at 11 p.m.. Noah refused to go TT, and actually did not TT the next day until we arrive back at my house at 7 p.m. Such is the life of three year olds. Noah did not get sick at all on Wednesday which was a blessing because we were in the car for exactly 12 hours. And by Thursday when he went to the bathroom, he was completely better. So of course he would get sick only during the time that that we were going to be on vacation.
Aaron told me that this was a deliberate attack on us from Satan and that I should enjoy myself no matter what. I made it to Monday before I had a breakdown, but Aaron was so sweet to talk to me on the phone and keep me sane. My parents were out of this world fantastic to us. My dad never once got upset that we had to keep stopping for Noah to try to go to the bathroom, or that Noah was sick, or that we had to keep stopping so I could feed Avery. And my mom just kept reassuring me the whole time that it was completely fine for me to be on this trip and that things were going to work out. In fact she and I patted ourselves on the back for going to Pennsylvania to the Strasburg Railroad because it was a risk to go to a town an hour away with a kid who's been sick, and having it be 49 degrees outside with a wind chill of probably 35. But I bundled Avery up like nobody's business and bundled my boys up like nobody's business and we got on that train and we had a good time.
My grandma got a bit of a cold right before we got there so she was a bit under the weather while we were there but the boys had a fantastic time and I'm so glad that my grandma got to meet Noah and Avery.
The moral of the story for myself, in the future when I read this again, is to get out of your comfort zone and do it anyway. My kids made so many memories on this trip and I just wouldn't be pleased with myself if I had refused to go based on fear. My mom was great and she took the kids outside of my grandma's house on Monday and on Tuesday and let them run off some energy and play in the leaf piles and run through a field in front of my grandma's house. And they absolutely loved it! Michael said that was his favorite part of the trip was getting to jump in leaves with Gigi. So it's important for me to remind myself that it's not about my comfort zone it's about getting out and doing something different despite the fear and letting my kids make memories.
Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba
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