There's No Place Like Home

Okay, first of all, I forgot all about my post on Casey Anthony, so when I pulled up my blog and caught sight of the photo of her and O.J., I got a little nervous.  Then I remembered....and it was all good.

Second of all, we are home.

I know you didn't even know we were gone, because I didn't tell you, because I knew y'all might want to come rob my house and steal the big screen TV we scored (for an undetermined amount) at the garage/estate/moving sale down the street.  It was an undetermined amount because we offered them $75 for the TV, Sony keyboard and stand, telescope, cedar chifferobe and boom box.  See, y'all could've got all that and wiped us out.  So I didn't tell you we were leaving.

But now we're back.

As we drove into the drive yesterday evening, I vowed to remind myself how I was feeling right then and there, next time I want to take children on a long car ride.

Y'all....

Some friends of ours offered us a free place to stay in Disney if we went with them, and I declined because of the 12 hour car ride.  That was a smart move.

Thinking I could handle a 6 hour car ride to Destin -- dumb move.  Oh, and then there was the equally hellish 6 hour ride back.

On the way down there, I was sure Tootsie would sleep part of the way.  I am a seasoned Mama by now.  I planned the trip during nap time.  Well the child fought it tooth and nail, and when she finally nodded off, Handy Daddy had to stop to pee.  So we enjoyed that 10 minute nap of hers while it lasted.

On the way back home, she was exhausted because she decided to awaken at 4 am and not go back to sleep.  She was asleep before we got out of Destin.  We enjoyed about 20 minutes and then the Bug had to stop to pee.  So, Tootsie was up an' at 'em again, crying because she was so tired and too uncomfortable in the carseat to sleep.  We endured several hours of this when she finally went back to sleep.  The very minute she nodded off, the Bug said she needed to pee.  I turned around and gave her the look of death and she dared not ask again.  That nap lasted until we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic in Baton Rouge.

I'm telling you, those two car rides were nearly enough to do me in for good.  What I experienced during those trips could only be described as the seventh layer of hell. 

I don't understand what it is about a long car ride that turns my sweet little cherubs into instruments of torture, but I don't plan to volunteer for this madness again anytime soon.

I managed to hold it together for the first 4 1/2 hours but, at that point, I snapped and lost any semblance of sanity and turned into them.  There was a specific moment when it happened, too, for Handy Daddy noticed it, glanced over at me, and began to intervene with pleas to the children to sing happy songs to pass the time.

Isn't it funny how when Mama snaps, Daddy takes over -- and vice versa?  It's like we know that one of us has to remain calm in order to preserve the human race.  Let's face it -- parents invented "good cop, bad cop."  But we weren't doing it to manipulate -- no, rather, to save the children's lives.  It's obviously vital to perpetuating the species.

Don't get me wrong -- the entire vacation was not horrible.

We actually stayed in a fabulous condo for an unbeatable price (you can't beat free).  The beach and the water were gorgeous.  We made some memories.

The Bug enjoyed the beach thoroughly, and even made a friend one day (though they never exchanged names--rude). 

However, Tootsie was not a fan.  The first day, she didn't love the beach.

 The second day, she was angry with the beach.

This is her, pouting and refusing to join us.

The third day, she loathed the beach.  (No pictures here, as I didn't care to capture the crying and screaming...some things are best forgotten.)

Her objection was mainly to the sand.  She requested that it stay off of her, which was impossible to accommodate.

The Bug had no qualms with the sand, as evidenced here.

It rained on the fourth and fifth days, so we didn't venture out to the beach, much to Tootsie's delight.  She did, however, love the pool.  She floated around on her little floaties and kicked her little legs.  She tried to make friends.  She proudly proclaimed her name and age and that she was the Bug's sister to anyone who glanced her way.

We went to the Gulfarium and saw a pretty cool dolphin show. 

This is him doing the "moonwalk".  I can't for the life of me remember his name -- rude.

Tootsie fed a Macaw named "Charlie," who also perched himself on my shoulder for this photo op.  Don't worry -- she was not afraid of the Macaw.  She just didn't want me "handling" her.  She is 2, after all.

So besides the trips there and back, Tootsie's aversion to the sand, and being awakened on the first night by Handy Daddy's vomiting and Tootsie's bad dream and related maniacal screaming (oh, did I forget to mention that), it was an enjoyable vacation.

We arrived home, thoroughly exhausted and more than a little grumpy, bathed everyone and collapsed into our pillows. 

I awoke feeling the same as I did when I hit the pillow the night before, since the girls decided to wake up before 7 am.  I mean, really????

I huffed and puffed and grumped my way through preparing breakfast and insisting they eat what I prepared and insisting they drink from the cup I picked and insisting that they stop whining about the meal and the cup and don't they know I'm tired and I have to take their car seats apart and wash them because they're disgusting now because they acted like animals in the car and...

...and Tootsie comes walking in like this and I succumb to the belly laughs that are inevitable when a child walks in with carseat arm rest pads on her feet like slippers.

Of course, hearing the laughter coming from Handy Daddy and me, the Bug had to take a turn being goofy.

Man, after the week I had, I needed that.

If only she could have clicked the heels of those "slippers" together and gotten us home like Dorothy Gayle got herself back to Kansas.

That would have been money.

After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's relatives. --Oscar Wilde

Just so you're not thinking I haven't come by my [self-appointed] name, Mama to da Drama, honestly, feast your eyes on the insanity that is my life at dinner time every day:

EVERY.DAY.

I naively thought that this was just normal behavior for children this age at dinnertime.  However, if you listen closely, I was on the phone with a friend when I captured this impressive footage, and I'm pretty sure she thought I was torturing them.  No, my sweet friend, just feeding them dinner.  But, apparently, torture and dinner are synonymous to them.  And to me, unfortunately.

My friend assured me that this is NOT NORMAL behavior, and this does not go on in everyone's home.

Hmmmm....

Very eye-opening....

It's a wonder I require a minimum of 2 Nature's Sunshine Stress Packs a day.  Why on earth could I be suffering from insomnia?  And what could possibly be the cause of all these knots in my shoulders and back -- it's like the Rocky Mountains back there.

Y'all.

What am I going to do with these children?  This has been going on upwards of 5 years.  How I've managed to cling to a sliver of sanity is beyond me.

On the bright side, I did put them to bed at 7 p.m.  More rocking was requested by the little one and more water was requested by the "big" one.  I said, "It's time for bed and if I hear another cry come from this room, I'll return with The Rod."

I know....shame, shame, shame.

But, for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy, do you blame me?

On a completely unrelated note, and utterly random to boot, this is the absurdity we call "weather" in Louisiana:

early February - preparing to make icicles

late February - splashing in the sprinkler

Good night, friends.  And when you're asking the blessing over your dinner tomorrow, throw in a good word for me.  I need all the help I can get.

Foreign body in the body

Isn't it amazing how, for the first child, you read a ginormous stack of books, follow them to the letter, never miss a well-baby visit, never fail to follow the doctor's instructions to the letter.....then the next baby comes along and all of that goes out the window and you just go into survival mode????  As long as that little person is alive, then you're doing A-okay.

Handy Daddy and I are both oldest children.  Then we had the Bug, and we were a home of three oldest children.

Then we had Tootsie.

And she has pretty much rocked our world.  The three of us oldest children collectively adore that little "baby," and it seems she is already getting away with everything.

The thing about oldest children, in our experience, is that the oldest child is more cautious, serious, orderly....just kind of a "by the book" kinda person.  Which is, I guess, why that ginormous stack of books was so applicable with our oldest.

Then we have Tootsie, the little daredevil, goofy, and "anything goes" child.  And she has really given us a run for our money.

This is her being all  Evel Knievel on the four-wheeler my dad gifted her with just 5 minutes earlier.

Her latest shenanigan went down on Saturday night.  She was sitting in her high chair, eating a bowl of popcorn.  Never mind the Bug wasn't allowed to eat popcorn until she was three years old, and Tootsie is only 18 months old.  Tootsie is the "baby" and, therefore, is invincible. 

So, she was eating a bowl of popcorn, and begins to let out these piercing screams.  Handy Daddy and I look at her like, "what the....???"  After several minutes of the screaming, I become quite annoyed concerned.  She was rubbing her nose a little, and Handy Daddy was worried she had put something up there.  I scoffed at the idea.  We have girls.  Girls don't do stuff like that.

I told him to pick her up, and she rested her head on his shoulder and cried for a good long while.  We then decided that she had to be teething.  That's why she was crying while she was eating.  Poor baby...her teeth hurt.  So we gave her some Tylenol and a teething ring and went outside to try to distract her from the pain.

This is her with her sister about 20 minutes after insertion and 10 minutes before discovery of the popcorn kernel.

After we were out there a while, she wanted to swing.  So I strapped her in and as she was on the upswing, I spotted something in her right nostril.

Popcorn kernel.

We head back into the house and try to suction it out with the suction bulb.  We push it so far in, we cannot see it anymore.  I called my neighbor, who is a pediatrician, and he suggested I take her to the ER, since he didn't have the proper tool at home to retrieve the popcorn kernel.

Thank the Good Lord, my cousin, who is a nurse in the Children's ER, was working and they slipped us in and out in 30 minutes.  No popcorn kernel was retrieved.  It seems Handy Daddy and I had pushed it all the way down and she swallowed it.  I wonder how much that ER visit cost us to figure that out?

I blamed the whole thing on Handy Daddy and said she got that from his side of the family.  He was quick to point out that it was MY siblings who did that sort of thing.  And his mother confirmed that he and his brothers never stuck any foreign bodies into their bodies.

He's right, you know.

I was the oldest child, so I never partook in any of this buffoonery.  But one of my brothers stuck M&Ms and rocks into his nose.  Another brother swallowed a gigantic button that had to be surgically removed from his esophagus.  And my baby sister put BBs into her ear.  They all took their own little trips to the ER.

I'm afraid.  I'm very afraid.

And I'm not having any more kids.