Pearly Words of Chaos: Our First Road Trip/ Beach Trip

It never ceases to amaze me, this journey through motherhood. You think you have it all figured out, you think you know it all and wham! You find yourself in a new situation with a new set of circumstances that you were not prepared for, although you tried to prepare for but I am slowly realizing that no amount of preparing prepares you for the wayward ways of a toddler.

Here it was, Thursday afternoon and like any Type-A planner, I was packing and checking off everything we would need for our first long(ish) road trip/ beach trip with Emma. I had done what any mother would have done the night before, panicked that we didn’t have enough towels/ sunscreen/ whogeemawhatsits and ran to Target. Half the store in my cart later, I felt a sense of security that my family would be safe from any “I forgot to get that mishaps” because, you know, we were staying in the total middle of nowhere suburbs of Hampton VA (which turned out we ended up across the street from a Target) but I digress.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon, I picked Emma up from daycare to be greeted with a loud cough. Admittedly, she had had a runny nose upon drop off but this was a full blow old man cough. EEK. Without missing a beat, I got her in the car and called the pediatricians office while en route. I figured if they told me they couldn’t squeeze me in I would just show up on their doorstep. As it turned out, they had time for me and upon inspection, I was told Emma had a case of “postnazal drip.” Grand! We had already booked a nonrefundable hotel room and it was supposed to be a trip with Thomas’ twin brother and his family to see our nephew in his MMA tournament and to celebrate the twin’s birthday. With a heavy heart I drove home and informed Thomas of the situation. He was already on his way home from work so we agreed to hash out the details when he got there.

The thing of it is, when he got home, his car would not go into park. The gear shift had malfunctioned. I could not believe it. A sick baby and a broken gear shift, it looked like the universe was grounding us for sure. This lead to hours worth of tools clanking and YouTube referencing and various neighbors stopping by. All the while I was taking a load off thinking we weren’t going anywhere for the night. Believe it or not, sometime after my husband got home from the auto parts store to get the part he needed (he took my car there) Charlie, one of our dogs, started limping! I kid you not a coughing toddler, a broken vehicle, and now a limping dog literally in the span of 2-3 hours.

Panic was not an option (I was too tired). I remained extremely calm and somehow over the next hour, the situations resolved themselves. Charlie’s limp was temporary and YouTube and glue fixed Thomas’ car. As for Emma, I looked up pediatrician offices and the nearest hospital to where we were staying. Trust me I did not take her health lightly. I thought long and hard about the consequences of driving 3.5 hours away with a less than healthy child, but in the end I decided to give it a whirl. (To not leave you in suspense, somehow when she woke up on Saturday, she was 100% better. She didn’t cough the entire time we were there! Her nose didn’t even run at all! I was very grateful.) However, that didn’t mean we didn’t have our fair share of problems along the way.

For starters, we planned the whole trip so we would be driving while Emma slept figuring that would be the logical thing to do. With the car delay we did end up leaving until around 10pm on Friday. We stopped two times, both of which Emma woke up. By the time we got to the hotel she was fully awake thinking it was time to start the day. The next obstacle we had was the play yard. Emma is a picky sleeper to begin with. She won’t nap or sleep if the conditions aren’t just right, so being wide awake and then being laid down to sleep in a foreign environment were two big strikes against us. It didn’t help that mommy and daddy were right there in the room with her which of course meant it was time to get up and party. Two hours later (yup at 3am) she finally went back to sleep (after much protesting.) I felt bad that we had disturbed her routine but I was so tired at that point I could barely think.

Saturday morning came and several cups of coffee later, we were off to see her 7 year old cousin, Justin compete in his second national title event for mixed martial arts. The event took place at a large sportsplex. There were 8 match mats set up in the middle of a large gym. I didn’t know it at the time, but Justin would have 5 matches over the course of a 4 hour period. This ran right through lunch time and nap time and Emma was running on little sleep as it was. Luckily there were a lot of families with young kids, so having an erratic toddler running around blended in with the background more than anything.

In fact, the back corner of the gym seemed to be the toddler corralling area. Dads and kids running every which way.

We were goofing off here, but you can see serious business was going on ....just look at the faces in the background.

We ended up leaving early to grab lunch while Emma took her standard car nap. Then it started to rain and I was worried we wouldn’t make it to the beach all weekend, so I did again, what any mom would do…passed out and took a hour long nap. This left poor Thomas to watch Emma which was extremely difficult in a non-baby proofed hotel room. We brought distractions but Emma is in the phase were she only wants to play with things she can’t have which were in abundance in the room. That made anytime in the hotel room stressful for me.

Saturday night, we ended up going to the indoor pool at Thomas’ brother’s hotel. Emma loves hanging out in the pool with her dad! We took her out twice and she would reach over for her dad each time. We didn’t last long at the pool running off of only 3 hours of sleep and all, so it was an early night for us. Once again Emma was not trying to go to sleep in the play yard but we had started the night night routine early so she finally went down at 8pm.

Then came Sunday! Sunny Sunday! The sun was out and we FINALLY got to go to the beach! I am a huuuge beach bum and I was worried Emma might not like the beach. It’s a love I was wanting so desperately to share with her. She was definitely scared and bewildered at first. She did not like that her feet sunk into the sand which didn’t give her enough traction to run. That upset her for a while, until she saw her cousins playing in the sand. All of a sudden, tears were replaced by joy and happy curiosity. She became totally enamored with the sand. I was so excited to see her happy and actually enjoying herself. I am so glad I will be able to share my love of the ocean with her for years to come.