For those of you just tuning in, we drove to Washington state this week. All of us. As in all four kids, Mom and Dad and our dog, Isaac. I’m sure if you asked yourself, “How much would someone have to pay me to take a trip across half of the country with four children ages five and under and a 100 pound dog?” Your answer would be somewhere in the mid-six figures. And rightfully so. But, we are here to tell you that once we got settled in, it wasn’t that bad. And we even had fun.
Sure, any vehicle would smell kind of funky after two small children get carsick and vomit all over themselves. And, no, a large, long haired dog in extremely close quarters does not add anything positive to that aroma. Yes, Mom and Dad were smart enough to purchase an air freshener before we left home. (Or what is now our old home.) But it turned out to be a mix of new car smell and ocean breeze, which only added an institutional tropical note to the car’s pungent bouquet.
Between stopping for potty breaks, snacks, and meltdowns, we easily tacked a good five or six hours onto our nineteen hour drive. We think it was somewhere near seven o’clock on the first night–when everyone was hungry and tired after the longest unbroken stretch they’d ever spent in the car–when Mom and Dad realized that we weren’t going to make their schedule for the trip. Thankfully, when Mom called the hotel we’d reserved for that night, our wailing in the background was just the touch she needed to lend an air of credibility to her plea to not charge her for canceling the booking last minute. (To be honest, the front desk lady was probably relieved that her hotel was no longer a stop for our traveling side show.) But, after that, we knew better than to carry any expectations into our traveling day.
Though no one really slept, the DVD players helped to keep us quiet. God only knows how many times Emmett has now watched the Fairy Pirate movie. Ten times? Twenty? None of the rest of us have been able to wrestle the movie away from him, so we’re unsure but he’s been saying “aye, aye Captain” while calling us all “mateys” and “little fellas.” We can only assume its the influence of the new Tinker Bell movie.
But the only other option was no movies, which we tried. When Mom and Dad felt that we’d had enough, they pulled the plugs–literally–on our DVD players. As a result, we spent the entire time fighting. Tessa kept touching Emmett, who yelled, “No touching” over-and-over again. Riley monologued about anything and everything he saw out the window, at some points breaking into song. And, all the while, everyone asked for more food, different songs, to turn this way or that way off the highway, to go faster or slower. Tessa screeched. Emmett yelled. Riley cried. And all the noise always, always, woke the baby.
Which brings us to Asher. Turns out that for most of his eight months, he spent very little time in a car seat. We were mostly at home. Playing. He’d been held, or put into a jumper, or a play seat. He’d scooted himself across the floor. But, what he never did, was to sit in a car for an entire day. He HATED it. The only thing that would calm him was if Dad was going faster than 50-60 miles per hour. When Dad would slow down, or-God forbid-stop, he’d start crying again. And he was mad. It was like the move Speed, but instead of a bomb being wired to the bottom of the car that would detonate if our speed dropped below fifty, Asher would start to cry. (You think a baby crying isn’t as bad as a bomb, and although you would be right, you aren’t that far from being wrong.)
But really what our little man wanted was to be held and cuddled. When Mom would reach back and stroke his head, he’d calm down. Or he’d reach out with his fat little fingers and grab her hand and press it to his cheek and he’d smile. He’d never gone that long without human comfort. He’d been loved-on too much to make him a good cross country traveling companion. Plus, the extended periods of inaction did no favors for his digestion, which helped no one. You think it’s stinky being near a baby’s dirty diaper. Try sitting next to one in a car smoldering with toddler sick and panting dog for however long it takes to get to the next exit with a rest area. Not a good time.
But it wasn’t all bad. When we got to our hotels, and we jumped on the hotel beds for almost a full thirty minutes laughing so hard our stomachs hurt; or when we got to Dinosaur National Monument and we got so close to a real dinosaur that we saw how big his teeth really were; or when we picked all the dandelions in the park we stopped at and gave them to Mommy; or when we pretended over-and-over again that we were Cinderella when the clock chimed midnight while playing at a park with a wrought iron carriage; or when we were so happy to snuggle Asher when he finally got out of his carseat that we sang to him; or when we sat and watched noiselessly the three see-thru elevators going up-and-down in our hotel lobby; or when we sang “its the ocean, the ocean, the ocean” when we thought we saw the ocean for the first time but it just turned out to be the Columbia river; or when we really did see the ocean for the first time and we weren’t as impressed as we were with the Columbia river–it was all worth it.
And because we are all together–and because moving to Washington is about our lives together–it is all, always, worth it.
Love,
The Four Fantastic Pigs
PS If you are wondering if we, after four nights in hotels, have finally found someplace to live. The answer is: No. We are still in a hotel. Indefinitely. But we are looking into getting a PO Box. In the meantime, you can send our mail to General Delivery. Because not only did we move across the country, we moved across the country circa the 1800s. Cheers!
