Moving Adventures Part 1

(Note: This guest post is from my wife, Nicole. These are the events that happened July 24th, 2017.)

Well, after 4 hours of sleep, we woke and were on the road by 5. Forgot one little detail… taking girls to the restroom before we left. When we reached Adelanto, Mollie said she had to go the bathroom. Pulled in to the first gas station we saw and wouldn’t you know it, the restrooms were both out of order ? Bought a potty seat for emergencies such as this.

In the mean time, Meg decided she wanted to get dressed. Dressed the girls and was handing out the snack when Jake gagged himself and threw up the banana I just fed him! Cleaned him up, scrounged around to find the clothes I’d stuffed in our overloaded van. A 10 minute stop took 30 minutes ?

Back on the road! Fortunately, despite a quick run through McDonald’s, we reached St. George, Utah by noon. As we unloaded the car, we spent 10 minutes in 107° weather looking for Mollie’s shoe and 3 elusive crayons. Finally decided to look when we returned from lunch and have Mollie ride in the shopping cart with one shoe.

Took Jake out of the car only to discover he’d blown out his diaper! He didn’t want to be changed because his poor rear is so irritated. Think the ladies in the Costco restroom thought I was crazy as I held down a squirmy, stinky baby. Once he was changed, I took the girls to the restroom and heard someone commenting on the smell in the bathroom! Way to go baby boy!!

Returned to the van and spent another 10 minutes finding the lost flip flop and crayons. Between the puke and diaper blowout, we’d nearly used our stash of wipes. So had to run to Walmart of course! Back to the road!

Thankfully the kids played quietly with their aqua doodle pads, and the girls fell asleep ? Just as Jake was starting to fuss, we passed through a rainstorm, and the boys stared out the window awestruck. Rain is discovered (by the way, the storm cleaned our windshield better than the Lancaster Cruz Thru)!

Things went fairly well for the next few hours. Kids napped and ate dinner at Wendy’s. About 20 minutes into the home stretch, I heard a noise any mother learns to dread–Clark was about to spew. Managed to get most of his dinner in the plastic bag I’d brought for such emergencies. After a quick clean up job, we were back in business. Five minutes later though, we had to stop again because we suspected Jake had dirtied his diaper. False alarm!

Why is it the last 100 miles of any trip seems the longest. After hitting a few construction spots, we finally pulled into Denver at midnight. Sadly, kids who are awakened at midnight are not exactly pleasant. Mollie did okay, but Meg is a bear whenever her sleep’s interrupted. Clark perked up a bit as we trekked across the parking lot. Once we reached the unfamiliar hotel room, however, he started crying that he wanted out of the room! Andrew left me with the three younger ones while he and Mollie retrieved our luggage. In the mean time, Jake’s full diaper leaked out onto my shirt. Andrew hadn’t returned so I quickly stripped Jake down and threw him into the tub. At which point Jake joined the crying chorus ? I half expected the manager to come throw us out any minute with all the ruckus we were causing.

Andrew finally came with the luggage (except for the toiletries bag but that’s another story). Prepared for bed and let the kids watch a little episode of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood before settling in for a few hours of much needed rest!