Buh Duh Buh Buh Daaah

You know that moment when you say, "Honey, I could really use a break. We should take the kids somewhere fun this weekend. I think name a town, USA would be fun. Don't you think that would be fun? Let's go." So plans get under way to go to Nameatown for the weekend and you know it will be stressful traveling less than four weeks after giving birth but it will mostly be fun and after all that's what families are for, to make happy memories with, right? You try to prepare ahead of time, but there's always busy-ness and time doesn't just grow on trees (see previous post for more commentary on this one) and before you know it, it's 3:30 pm on the day you are slated to leave and nothing is completed - a few (mostly) clean clothes are slopped into a travel bag awaiting their friends and some toiletries, the dirty dishes have taken to death rite mourning because they've given up hope of ever being washed, there are more crumbs than tile on your floor, and you are so tired you can't breathe. And you haven't eaten lunch. Or breakfast. Number Three poops bright blue (why?? how??) and Number Four launches an ocean of mustard into his carseat (see previous post for an explanation of "mustard", too ). You run him into the shower to hose him down and your vigilant daughters point out there is inexplicably a BEE in the shower. A bee. Seriously. (insert here the two most asked and least answered questions in my existence - why?? how??) The Mama Bear Rage starts flowing and I scream my frustration at this impudent insect and trap him in a broken plastic cup against the side of the stall and now scream in victory. Number Two runs and gets me a sheet of paper so we can cap the cup and release Stupid Bee into the wild, but Stupid Bee is apparently smarter than Smart Melted-Cheese-Brain Mom and he escapes into the great beyond of the house, which results in the girls screaming in terror (lots of screaming these days) while I turn my attention back to naked, starving, poopy Four who is screaming because he is, well, naked, starving, and poopy.
And now it's 5:00 and Josh arrives home to find things in pretty much this state. He is, of course, disappointed and silently screaming, but he's a gentleman so he doesn't scream out loud, just starts doing dishes and helping the kids with their chores. He doesn't scream out loud, that is, until he discovers Three has once again pooped blue (I really don't know how this is possible. The dog food she eats is brown and the play doh she last consumed was safety green. Blue poop is very improbable.) and then attempted to take herself to the toilet, where she horror-movie smeared it all over the bathroom and herself. He cleans her up while I continue the never ending process of collecting the entire house so we can leave town for three days. Finally, FINALLY, we are on the road and making decent progress. We stopped at McDonald's for dinner, which didn't quite live up to its I'm Lovin' It campaign, since they failed to give Number One a toy in his Happy Meal. Still though, it's going okay until Number One very definitely stops lovin' it and tells us he's feeling really sick and his stomach really hurts. We pull over to let him vomit, but apparently his digestive tract suffers from stage fright and waits until we're all tucked back in the car, warm and safe and I'm sitting next to him to help hold the bag and comfort and calm him. Then all of a sudden, buh duh buh buh daah, (that's the McDonald's jingle if you can't tell. Inserted here as a display of cruel irony.) the I'm Lovin' It food comes back to haunt all of us, down poor One's shirt and pants, his giant comforter, his sister's comforter that he was borrowing as a pillow, the floor, his seat, and my comfy travel yoga capris. Oh.My.Heck. NOT Lovin' It. This "break" I asked for is melting as quickly as a KitKat on a summer dashboard. Let me just drive home this point one more time. It's 11:30 pm. We've been in the car for five hours. I'm sitting smothered in my son's vomit and his sister is still not asleep because she's crazy and now she's gagging from watching the excitement in the back seat and also from the McNugget-y smell. And all this is happening on the trip I wanted to take as a break.
Alright, back to the action. So One is now completely exhausted and passing out, the late hour, illness, and small bit of Dramamine that stayed in his system all now taking their toll. As best I can, I peel him out of his clothes, wrap him in a still-clean blanket, and send him to sit in my recently vacated passenger seat. Not the safest place for a 6 year old, but it's clean and he can sleep there and if we would have been pulled over and the officer had taken issue with it, one look at my crazed, sleep-deprived, sputum-covered self would have been enough to send The Law running the other way. I turn on the back light and begin scrubbing everything down with baby wipes and Lysoling stuff (we keep Lysol in the car after the last time someone vomited on a road trip) and trying to contain it in the giant trash bag we thankfully had with us. Unfortunately this is all taking place while I am standing in only my t-shirt and a gray pair of panties, the inside light highlighting my rumbly, post-baby body in all its lumpy glory. Lovely.
So that's how our "break" started - with no real "break", although it did end with KitKats, because it was Easter, and tiny KitKats are exactly the right size to fit into a regular plastic Easter egg...just in case any of your Easter bunnies were wondering (and kids LOVE them. At least my kids do. Number One broke out into a spontaneous KitKat rap: "KitKat, KitKat. Everyone loves KitKat, KitKat," complete with breakdancing and everything). And although we no longer love McDonald's, we do love each other and that makes the trip and memories worthwhile....once the stench wears off.

25 or 6 to 4

You know that show 24? Of course. Before we had kids, Josh and I had a Christmastime tradition of marathoning entire seasons of the show when we went south to visit our parents. Josh's brother always had the latest season on DVD so we'd spend too much of our school break drowning in the tales of Jack & Co. Although I enjoyed this excessive period of sloth and junk food, I always thought the show was unrealistic. Not even in the obvious ways like how people and vehicles blow up and then unexpectedly return to gloriously blow up again a few hours later. No, I'd just watch and think, "All that happened in an hour? That much stuff never happens in an hour. No hour is so dramatically and ridiculously filled with unexpected things/horrors. The only thing that happens in my life in an hour is that I've slept one hour longer thanks to a super boring investments lecture. These writers have no idea about real life." (Isn't it cute how much we thought we knew before we had kids??)
Enter: motherhood time warp, where the days are eternal but the years gone in a blink, where in the space of an hour you've acted as nurse, cabbie, tutor, pacifier, referee, chef, and Mom-come-play-with-us-right-now-you-have-to-be-the king cobra but also you haven't had time to shower in $% days because a substantial percentage of your minutes is spent convincing poor Number 4 he'll survive if he's set down for more than 6 seconds.
And now, to the delight of the Fates who were apparently listening and snickering behind their fingers during those ironic pre-kid hours, I spend one thousand percent of my days awash in this bizarre space-time continuum where normal rules don't apply and little makes sense that we call parenthood. And I have days like this: (cue suspenseful theme music and explosion montage)

1:00 pm - I begin fixing my lunch, two hours ahead of where we usually are. Hooray!
1:04 pm - Number Two begins pooping
1:06 pm - Number Two begins crying, asking me to come wipe her, something she's been doing on her own for two years
1:08 pm - I reassure Number Two that she can do it! Go team! You're the best woohoo!
1:15 pm - Still working on lunch, Number Three pees on the floor, through the panties-no-not-diapers-I-won't-wear-diapers she insisted on today
1:21 pm - I discover aforementioned pee in a large puddle, help Number Three use the potty, and clean up the world
1:32 pm - I resume lunch prep
1:35 pm - I again reassure Number Two, who is now screaming nonsensically that she cannot do it Mom I can't do it just come wipe my bum there are wipes in here and toilet paper just come do it for me
1:44 pm - I attempt to eat the lunch, now 45 minutes into the setup of a 5 minute meal
1:49 pm - Number Four starts crying, trying to outweigh the shrieks of Two, who has deteriorated and is now sitting poopy-bummed in the hall with her face in her knees, Mom I can't do it I'm just a little girl I can't I'm little come do it just come do it
1:51 pm - I simultaneously encourage and try to ignore Two and also scarf down lunch at lightning speed
2:00 pm - I reach Four to discover he is smothered in a smushy yellow goo of his own making and that it's already staining his new adorable outfit (this is especially concerning since outfits that are either new or adorable are somewhat of a novelty in our house) and has also soaked into the couch and his pillow
2:08 pm - Four, now shiny clean, also decides he's starving like he's never before eaten in all his life
2:16 pm - Two realizes the futility of her struggle and finally emerges from the bathroom clean and requesting immediate-no-Mom!-teach-me-now-you-can-do-it-while-you're-feeding-CJ and elaborate instructions on how to execute the line dance from Footloose
2:30 pm - Time to pick One up from school, so Four decides now would be a good time to unleash another uncontainable tidal wave of mustard (by "mustard" I mean poop. If you don't get it, you don't wanna know, take it from me.)
2:38 pm - We frantically sprint out the door, chuck everyone into the car and hit the road
2:40 pm - Two screams desperately that JJ isn't buckled Mom and I immediately pull over to correct this epic oversight, only to also discover that in a mindless stupor I evidently put panties back on her the last time she wet through them and now she's wet herself again. in the car. while stowing away on her brother's seat that is now sopping and stinking wet and now I have to move her to her actual right car seat, getting it all wet and nasty, too, so we'll just put a grocery sack on top of One's seat and that'll have to do until we get home and oh my heck we are so late they're going to think we're not coming and they'll give poor Judsen away to a proper home and do you think they'd consider taking one of  the others instead how about the one who just peed everywhere twice in two hours and what am I saying just drive Woman, drive!
2:54 pm - We return home with Number One thankfully returned safely to our care. I clean up the van, carefully make sure all the going-in-the-car stuff is returned to the house and begin counting my children, just to reassure myself everything and one is in its proper place. Of course, Number Three is missing and I run out to the (still open, nice going again, Mom) garage and discover she has streaked down to the road, across our thorn-infested gravel driveway, barefoot and naked except for a diaper and her snuggle blanket.
3:03 pm - Three comes around the corner with a face both shameful and smug and I find she's has filled her freshly replaced diaper with poop and has it smeared on her hands and body
3:04 pm - I let out a war whoop, not so much at my filthy child as at the universe who must think he's freakin' hilarious, cart Three off to the shower and start a load of laundry
3:15 pm - A spontaneous brownie and dance party breaks out and darn it all, I enjoy it. When every day of your life feels like an episode of 25 (it's like 24, but with an extra hour thrown in because everything takes longer when you have to do it with between 6 and 4 kids - it's hard to keep track), you have to take what pleasures you can get.