You want me to do what?!

Yesterday the kids and I made the trek home from my parents - the first time I had attempted the 5-hour car ride with the two of them (and the dog....who adds a whole 'nother dimension to travel).

When we went to my parents we had stopped for the weekend in Muscatine, so the longest I was in the car with them was a couple hours - easily done with a few DVDs and a short nap for Sadie. However, her car-ride limit seems to top out at about 3 hours, at which point she become completely hysterical, frantically trying to free herself from her carseat. The longest I had ever gotten her to sleep in the car was about 40 minutes, which is a lot less sleep than she needs for an afternoon nap, so you can imagine the mood she wakes up in - especially when she comes to enough to realize she is still in a carseat.

So - we pulled out of my parents' driveway around 10:30 in the morning. The first glitch was being unable to find the case of DVDs, which was lost somewhere beneath the mountain of stuff I had just loaded into the back of the van. I had one random Baby Einstein, a WonderPets, and a Berenstein Bears DVD loose up front. Sam started out asking to look through the case to pick a movie out, but my powers of persuasion somehow convinced him that we could make do with the 3 I had happened to locate. He chose "babies" and was enthralled with it for the first 2 hours of the trip, at which point he told me he just wanted to turn the DVD player off and watch me drive. Ok......never heard that before. Whatever, dude.

However, the first 2 hours were not all that great. No less than 40 minutes down the road I looked in my rearview mirror and saw my daughter making her notorious "poop face" - the one you get about 30 seconds before she empties her intestines (or bowels or colon or whatever it is you technically empty). I frantically pleaded with her to wait, telling her I would get off and she could go very soon, just please wait!

I have had 2 previous experiences with Sadie and No.2 while in the carseat and it is NOT pretty. When she goes, she goes more than most adults (Now, I don't really know what basis I have for making that statement since I have not ever seen how much any adult goes other than myself, but I am guessing my daughter could beat most of you in the No. 2 production department.) Put together a large amount of stuff, the fact that her rear is strapped into a seat, and the laws of physics, and you can paint yourself a picture of what happens.

Anyway - I manage to find an exit. There was nothing there other than a slightly scary looking gas station - not a place I would take my two-year-old (with three-year-old brother in tow) to try to balance her on the toilet seat so she can do her business. Plus, I would have had to get the dog into his kennel in the back and locate Sadie's shoes and socks that she had chucked over her head at some point and get both kids' coats on.....too much work. I decide to just get her out of her seat and hold her (standing) on my lap so she can just go in her pullup and I can just clean it up with little problem since I would have eliminated the rear-strapped-in-seat problem and I'd have gravity on my side.

Sadie, of course, had absolutely no clue what I wanted her to do. She had managed to hold it in, but was obviously completely confused by me having her stand on my lap in the front seat. Usually when I tell her to just wait, it is because I have swooped her up and am ripping off her clothes on the way to the toilet. So, she does what any toddler would do - starts playing with all the fun things up in the front that she has never been able to reach.

I redirect her attention to my face, with which I am doing my best "Sadie's poop face" impression. I throw in a few grunts to try to get the point across. She looks at me like I am completely crazy, but thankfully seems to get it and produces a nice present in her pullup for me. I ask her if she is all done, she tries to squeeze a little more out, and then does the sign for all done, so I think we are good to go. I change the pullup (in the front seat - I was impressed with myself) and get ready to pick her up and put her back in her seat when I see it again - the poop face. She manages to dirty the new pullup, I do another round of my impression of her going to make sure she really is done this time (and Sam chimes in with a few grunts of his own from the back), and I change her again (using up the last wipes I have in my diaper bag). Everything is dropped off in the garbage and we are on our way.

We make it another 40 minutes to Iowa City when I decide to stop for gas. I didn't really need it yet, but figured if I waited until I needed it the kids would have just fallen asleep and then be awakened when we would stop (since the dog goes nuts whenever the van slows down or turns). We get gas, where Sam sees McDonalds and talks me into some nuggets for lunch.

I am delighted when I see cherry pies on the menu, since they usually only have apple, and I love cherry pies. A lot. When I pull up to the window, they tell me it will be just another minute for the pies to be done - would I like to wait or would I just like something else from the dollar menu? Excuse me - who in their right mind would substitute a fruit and yogurt parfait for cherry pies? I pull ahead so they can run them out to me "as soon as they are done." Right. I won't go into all the details of the next 15 minutes, but I will tell you I eventually received some lukewarm cherry pies with a coupon for 2 free meals "for my inconvenience." Of course, the coupon is only good at the Coralville location and expires in 30 days, so that helps me out a lot.

We are on our way again and have managed to put a good 25 miles between us and Iowa City when I see my daughter making that face again. Seriously?! Was this really happening? And then I get a whiff of the air from the backseat - yes, it was really happening. We pull off at a rest stop and I am at a bit of a loss. I not only used the last of the wipes from my diaper bag with the previous 2 changes, I used the last pullup in the bag as well. Lovely. I vaguely remember having seen a pullup on the van floor earlier in the day (See Dad - it's a good thing my van is a bit on the not-always-clean side) and I know I have a container of wipes in the van somewhere as well. Good news - I find both. Bad news - there are only 2 slightly damp wipes left. I put both in my purse and head inside. I am able to make do with what I had and all is sweet smelling again. I even manage to scrounge up $1.25 in change in my purse and get myself a Mt. Dew from the vending machine - isn't life good!?

We loaded up again, turned the "babies" back on (that is, until Sam decided he just wanted to watch me drive), and actually made it the rest of the way without another stop. Sadie slept about an hour and a half (with only one wake-up in the middle thanks to her big brother) and there was less crying than I had anticipated. Sam had to be threatened numerous times to get him to stop making noise/kicking/poking/doing whatever he could think of to do to "accidentally" wake Sadie up, but thankfully he was not successful again. She woke up the final time about 30 miles from home (on her own - not thanks to Sam) and was pacified with fruit snacks and the WonderPets until we pulled into the driveway. All in all, not too bad - and well worth it for the fun week we had with all our family and friends. The only thing that could have made it better was if Daddy could have been with us. (He did get 100% on his test for the training he was in last week - way to go!)