confessions from the road

We are at that point.

You know.

The car is FILTH. The children are GRIMY. It is RAINING. We have 127 miles to go before arriving at my father's house and it is DARK.

But, we are pushing on.

There is NO WAY I want to stop and spend another night in a hotel. I don't want to lug our stuff in to a hotel and pray that the elevator works if they put us on anything other than the first floor. And that we are relatively close to where the car is parked. Unlike that time we were in Boulder and the elevator was broken - we were on the opposite side of the hotel - and we were on the THIRD floor.

Have you seen the volume of stuff we need for ONE night??

Portable crib?

Six bags?

Two laptops?

Diaper bag?

FOUR children that are usually too tired to walk?

We just made a quick stop outside of Fort Plain, New York. After a little "conversation" Charlie and I had this afternoon following a brief stop in Buffalo when he ran in to a Target for twenty minutes and came out with only a sleeve of diapers >> and not the cough drops, diaper wipes, snack food and drinks that I had THOUGHT he should also get >> we decided that I would do all the errand running for at least the rest of this leg of our trip. Apparently my husband isn't a very good mind reader which is somewhat of an inconvenience for me.

Turns out, I have inherited some traits from my family that Charlie thinks are questionable.

One of those traits is that when I've got my mind set to something - like work (or the last leg of a 3,000-mile driving adventure, apparently) - I don't stop to eat. Or, if I do eat, it's grazing as I go ... a handful of crackers, a banana, some raisins, a bottle of water.

Charlie, on the other hand, eats three square meals a day. I've often joked that if it wasn't for my husband, I would weigh 50 pounds less. Although it's not much of a joke, because I hardly eat when he isn't around.

Maybe if our children were hungry, I could see stopping to eat. But whenever we've stopped to eat while driving thus far, and I order them a wide assortment of food, they will take a bite of this, a bite of that and be done. Henry, will take a bite of one thing and then throw everything else on the floor and SCREAM. You know, the kind of screaming that conjures visions of duct tape.

Then, because the kids don't eat everything that we order for them, I feel compelled to eat everything that remains on their tray because I cannot see throwing away food that I just paid MONEY for. And with all the eating I've done of their food AND my food, I'm absolutely SICK of road food.

So we just stopped for a quick break.

During the stop, I ran in to the mini-mart and bought cough drops, diaper wipes, snack food (crackers, yogurt, M&M's, canned peaches) and drinks. When I came back out, Charlie looked in the bag and asked "Where's my sandwich? Didn't you at least get me a burger?"

And I responded "What? Are you KIDDING me? Didn't we just eat a HUGE lunch six hours ago?? How many times a day do you need to eat?"

I don't want to stop.

I don't want to have another burger.

I don't want to smell another burger.

I want to push on and get there.

So we start to drive and I'm turned around backwards trying to feed the kids canned peaches from the front seat. There is peach syrup running all over me, all over them. Henry is screaming. I am so sticky my fingers are sticking to the keyboard. If I was left outside for 10-minutes I'd be covered in ants.

Charlie is asking "So, how is eating M&M's better for me than eating a sandwich? Woman, I need a meal! Can I at least have something nutritious? What about some crackers? OH MY GOD, Nutterbutter?! What IS this?! I need some damn food!!"

I respond, "Eat your cookie, Bud. I need a damn shower."

Then, I grasp his hand with my sticky one and sweetly say "Love, you can eat tomorrow."