11:15 a.m.
We had one pit stop to make before we started the trip. The two dogs had to be dropped off at the kennel. Oh, and a quick stop for my wife to pick up her allergy prescription. (I don't know how she measured time, but with two kids that had put themselves in their seats and buckled them and two dogs that thought my Prius was the perfect setting for running around, it had better use nano-seconds.) On the way to the store, the whining started. We'd actually made it further than I expected. But my wife reminded everyone that this was going to be a long trip and we all needed to behave. She also told me to set a good example, so I did my best to keep the whining to a minimum.
As we pulled into the shopping center to pick up the prescription, my daughter complained from the back seat, “I can't reach Honey to pet her.”
Since we rescued Honey and Stripe, we're not sure how old she is. The people at the rescue place said she was between 10 and 12 years old. That'd put her between 70 and 84 in human years. She is also the “baby” according to my daughter. Believe it or not, I was actually ready for this. (My wife's grandmother moved in with my wife's mother and father a few years ago because she “needed” to be taken care of. I have seen this exact same scenario played out many times since she moved in. My wife's mother has specific ideas and plans, none of which seems to phase my wife's grandmother in the least.) Rather than waste my breath telling the 82 year-old mother to move closer to my daughter, I told my daughter to concentrate really hard and make her arms grow.
For a moment there was utter silence from the back seat. Then I heard a grunt. A moment later there was another louder grunt. I did a quick turn and saw my 3 year-old daughter in her car seat. Her face was turning a bright shade of red, her little hands were white-knuckled fists, her eyes closed tight in a body-metamorphosing grimace.
“Are your arms longer?”
“Not yet,” she said between clenched teeth.
“Keep trying.”
I think she grunted an ok, but her focus didn't waver at all. (I'm sure my wife's grandmother has figured this tactic out, but in case she hasn't, I'll pass it on to her. That is sure to get me and my wife in the will.)
Once the dogs were dropped off, we hit the open road. 408 miles till our destination. 20 miles into the trip, “Are we there yet?” came from the back seat.
“Yeah, are we dere yet?” his sister piped in. (Apparently, the arm growing was a success or no longer needed since the dogs were at the kennel. I'll be sure to tell my wife's grandmother that for utmost effectiveness, you have to keep the object of desire within sight. Otherwise they get easily distracted and you have to start all over.)
“No, we have a long drive before we get there. Why don't you guys close your eyes and sleep?”
“We're not tired.” They both answered before I even finished my suggestion.
“I'm hungry.” I don't know which one said this. By the time trip was over, all talking was classified as white noise.
“We'll stop for lunch at the next exit,” my wife suggested. I can only assume it was in the deluded hope that full bellies would put them to sleep.
As promised, we stopped and I took my son in for a potty break while my wife unchained our daughter. (She'd recently learned how to undo her 3000 point safety harness. This is pretty impressive since I still need the directions to make all the required hookups.) I came out of the bathroom to a disgusted look on my wife's face.
“Your daughter left her shoes.” My daughter was perched in her arms, an innocent look on her face.
“Why didn't you make her put them on before you got her out of the car?”
“At home.” The innocent smile on my daughter's face got wider.
“She doesn't have to wear them while we're driving. Just when we get out.” (This all made perfect sense to me. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to my wife's brain. She's usually not this slow.)
“YOUR daughter (now I knew I was in trouble) LEFT them at home. I PUT them on her and she TOOK them off before she got in the car to DRIVE.”
My laughing probably didn't help my wife's mood, but with my daughter's sincere nodding, I couldn't help it. We'd both been so intent of packing the car, and with the kids buckled in, we'd overlooked one small detail; my daughter is a demon spawn.
Luckily, there was a mall close by. My wife and daughter went shoe shopping (their vacation got an early start.) After lunch, shoe shopping and repacking, we were back on the road heading west.
When I pulled into the rest area to get rid of a few cups of coffee I got The Look. “Why are we stopping? We're never going to get there?”
1:15 p.m.
54 miles into the trip, my daughter's arms are longer, the dogs are kenneled, the kids are fed, my daughter is wearing purple shoes and my bladder is empty and I'm sentenced to the passenger seat while my wife takes over “competently” driving. At least I can take a nap...
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Vacation
9:00 a.m.
I knew the kids were ready for the vacation when they were both sitting in their car seats and had buckled themselves in. The only problem was I was still packing the car for the trip. For the past week, they'd been smuggling toys into the car each morning on the way to school. “Daddy, are we going on vacation today?” one of them would ask.
“No, that's next week.”
“Well... can we put these toys in so we don't forget them?”
By the day we actually left, there was just enough room for them to squeeze in and buckle their seat belts.
Being a ecologically aware family, and with the price of gas starting to climb again, we were taking the Prius on this trip to Indiana. The directions said seven hours for the trip. That was the Iron Bladder rating. The Parents With Two Kids in a Cramped Car rating should have been listed as an easy ten hours.
The Prius, while great on gas mileage, surprisingly is not one of the more spacious cars there is. Back when gas prices were double what they are now, we decided to use it rather than the minivan for the long trips. We got a roof top bag made of the space-age silver material that had the same effect on my Prius as plaid shorts, black socks and sandals do on men at the beach.
My wife and I have a system for packing. She sets aside the things we will need to survive the trip, everything else is fair game. So when I packed the bag for the top of the car, I packed the bag. Since a roof rack would eat up precious gas mileage, I used the straps that NASA uses to secure the Space Shuttle prior to launch. (These are rated for everything from shuttle securing to rooftop car bags, but surprisingly they are not designed for hammocks. See the previous article for proof.) (I'm one of those people you see at Lowes that uses at least as much twine as the weight of the load. To this date, I have never had anything fly off the top of my car. (There was the time two summers ago the we almost lost a load of lumber out of the back of my wife's minivan. But iot wasn't on top of the minivan and was more a result of poor planning. I thought my friend would be more than enough of a counter-balance. In my defense, the plan was working perfectly until we hit the bump. If he hadn't started yelling and scrambling off, it would have been a moot point. Luckily, slamming the brakes on resettled all the lumber.)) So, when I used the ratchets to tighten down those two straps, they were tight. A tornado would hot have moved that bag off the roof of my car.
So, with the roof bag on and full of my stuff, the kids clothes, sleeping bags, blow up mattresses and anything else that didn't crack, crumble or scream as I stuffed it in, we were almost ready. We only needed to pack the trip essentials, (Games for the kids. My wife spoils them. The only game I would pack is “Look out the Window or Sleep.” But she has coloring books and crayons, magnets, stuffed animals and books. If I hadn't put my foot down, we would have somehow fit a ping pong table in. My logic that they couldn't play while belted in finally won over.) my wife's clothes and the cooler with food.
Three trips later, I had all of her stuff. It was too late to put a towing hitch on my car, (besides, I think the extra weight of the hitch would have me pulling wheelies all the time.) so it was time for hard decisions. My first thought was to take out the kid seats (and the kids), there was plenty of room in the back seat for all her stuff. But I was reminded that this was a family vacation and apparently the kids are a key part of the whole “family” thing.
In the end, we trimmed my wife's essentials down to one suitcase. The back of the Prius was loaded up, all the available space filled in. We just needed to load the two dogs and drop them off at the kennel and we'd be on our way. The only problem was, the last trip we'd taken and brought a dog was when we had our miniature schnauzer. Honey was twice his size, but thought she was half his size. Stripe didn't really care.
After one last check and locking the doors, we were ready to leave. I looked at my family in the car. Faces shining with eagerness. I opened the driver's door to get in. Honey was wedged in front of the seat, ready to hit the gas for me. My wife was trying to pull her back to the passenger side. Stripe was sprawled across both kids in the back seat. My daughter was pushing him toward my son. My son was pushing him toward my daughter. Stripe didn't seem to notice.
11:00 a.m.
Only 10 more hours till we hit the cabin...
I knew the kids were ready for the vacation when they were both sitting in their car seats and had buckled themselves in. The only problem was I was still packing the car for the trip. For the past week, they'd been smuggling toys into the car each morning on the way to school. “Daddy, are we going on vacation today?” one of them would ask.
“No, that's next week.”
“Well... can we put these toys in so we don't forget them?”
By the day we actually left, there was just enough room for them to squeeze in and buckle their seat belts.
Being a ecologically aware family, and with the price of gas starting to climb again, we were taking the Prius on this trip to Indiana. The directions said seven hours for the trip. That was the Iron Bladder rating. The Parents With Two Kids in a Cramped Car rating should have been listed as an easy ten hours.
The Prius, while great on gas mileage, surprisingly is not one of the more spacious cars there is. Back when gas prices were double what they are now, we decided to use it rather than the minivan for the long trips. We got a roof top bag made of the space-age silver material that had the same effect on my Prius as plaid shorts, black socks and sandals do on men at the beach.
My wife and I have a system for packing. She sets aside the things we will need to survive the trip, everything else is fair game. So when I packed the bag for the top of the car, I packed the bag. Since a roof rack would eat up precious gas mileage, I used the straps that NASA uses to secure the Space Shuttle prior to launch. (These are rated for everything from shuttle securing to rooftop car bags, but surprisingly they are not designed for hammocks. See the previous article for proof.) (I'm one of those people you see at Lowes that uses at least as much twine as the weight of the load. To this date, I have never had anything fly off the top of my car. (There was the time two summers ago the we almost lost a load of lumber out of the back of my wife's minivan. But iot wasn't on top of the minivan and was more a result of poor planning. I thought my friend would be more than enough of a counter-balance. In my defense, the plan was working perfectly until we hit the bump. If he hadn't started yelling and scrambling off, it would have been a moot point. Luckily, slamming the brakes on resettled all the lumber.)) So, when I used the ratchets to tighten down those two straps, they were tight. A tornado would hot have moved that bag off the roof of my car.
So, with the roof bag on and full of my stuff, the kids clothes, sleeping bags, blow up mattresses and anything else that didn't crack, crumble or scream as I stuffed it in, we were almost ready. We only needed to pack the trip essentials, (Games for the kids. My wife spoils them. The only game I would pack is “Look out the Window or Sleep.” But she has coloring books and crayons, magnets, stuffed animals and books. If I hadn't put my foot down, we would have somehow fit a ping pong table in. My logic that they couldn't play while belted in finally won over.) my wife's clothes and the cooler with food.
Three trips later, I had all of her stuff. It was too late to put a towing hitch on my car, (besides, I think the extra weight of the hitch would have me pulling wheelies all the time.) so it was time for hard decisions. My first thought was to take out the kid seats (and the kids), there was plenty of room in the back seat for all her stuff. But I was reminded that this was a family vacation and apparently the kids are a key part of the whole “family” thing.
In the end, we trimmed my wife's essentials down to one suitcase. The back of the Prius was loaded up, all the available space filled in. We just needed to load the two dogs and drop them off at the kennel and we'd be on our way. The only problem was, the last trip we'd taken and brought a dog was when we had our miniature schnauzer. Honey was twice his size, but thought she was half his size. Stripe didn't really care.
After one last check and locking the doors, we were ready to leave. I looked at my family in the car. Faces shining with eagerness. I opened the driver's door to get in. Honey was wedged in front of the seat, ready to hit the gas for me. My wife was trying to pull her back to the passenger side. Stripe was sprawled across both kids in the back seat. My daughter was pushing him toward my son. My son was pushing him toward my daughter. Stripe didn't seem to notice.
11:00 a.m.
Only 10 more hours till we hit the cabin...
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Parachuting
“Daddy, it's a great day to practice parachuting.”
You'd be surprised how such an innocent phrase can destroy a relaxing afternoon. I was sitting on our porch, enjoying the breeze and sun. Ever since I'd built the deck a couple of summers ago, my wife and I have enjoyed coffee in the morning or just taking a break to listen to the birds and the leaves rustle in the wind.
That's what I was doing this afternoon when my son and daughter came trooping out of the house with Wal-mart plastic bags on their shoulders. Now, I know they'd been planning somthing because both were far too happy. Usually when I catch them actively working together, they'll sheepishly admit to whatever bone breaking activity they've decided.
My son's proud declaration, without any prompting from me, left little doubt that we had a trip to the emergency room scheduled soon. Knowing him, and my daughter, it wouldn't be him with the cast(s) on tomorrow.
“Yes! We going parachuting!” His sister chimed in, clearly cutting off any objections I might raise, further proving that this was a grassroots uprising. She even added a little sass to those tiny hips as she sashayed after her brother. “Dear!” I called as I watched them clomp down the steps from the deck.
Last year, I'd finished chopping up the tree that had fallen across the yard, so they couldn't climb up on that to jump off. (Although there had been some really great places to climb, the tree had fallen directly across my hammock. It'd torn the straps loose and left the hammock itself relatively undamaged. Once I'd cut and split the tree past the hammock, my son and I dug it out from under the sawdust and branches. At first glance, it looked doubtful. But we stretched the hammock out, untangled the tangles and saw that it was savable. We just needed new straps to tie it to the tree. (The tree that fell took an evergreen tree, my hammock and at least of hundred feet of smaller trees and bushes, but didn't even graze the two trees holding the hammock, a sure sign that the hammock gods were watching over me.) But, being the careful planner that I am ( Stop snickering, that is just rude) I didn't automatically grab the duct tape. (All right, I did. But I stopped before I'd used the whole roll to secure the hammock. My daughter was standing there, hope and pride radiating from her blue eyes. She wanted her turn to rock with me in the hammock. I'll trust my life to duct tape anytime, but not hers.) I found the heavy duty straps that, according to the directions, were capable of securing the space shuttle. Several wraps around each tree and in the hooks on the hammock and we were back in business. I carefully slid in while my kids watched, each holding their breath for the swing test. The backwards somersault I did when the strap gave loose didn't knock the air out of my lungs. It was the sudden stop as I hit the wood pile that did that. My daughter rushed to make sure I was all right. I could just make out my son's giggling as she made sure I was alive. (He has a lot of ground to make up to get back in the will.))
“Your children are going to kill themselves!” I called from my seat on the deck.
“So?”
“Shouldn't one of us stop them?”
“I'm cooking dinner.” In the game of life, apparently “cooking dinner” trumps “sitting on the porch relaxing”.
My kids came trooping back across the porch, the parachutes still on their shoulders. But this time, they each had a stuffed animal outfitted with a parachute. Neither of them met my gaze as they walked by, but I could feel the panic radiating from the stuffed animals.
There was a fairly good chance that the stuffed animals would test the parachutes first... I relaxed for a few more minutes.
“Hey! I have an idea,” levitated me from the chair as my daughter disappeared around the corner. Her “ideas” while usually mechanically sound rarely take into full account the limitations of the human body.
“Daddy, we're just playing.” My son managed to sound persecuted as I ran up.
I could have used logic and explained that their body mass was more than the plastic of the wal-mart bags could slow, especially over a short distance. But that would have gotten me a blank stare until the short distance, then his sister would have figured out a way to get up on the roof just to prove me wrong.
Instead I fell back on parental rules. “No playing on the stairs, the deck, the roof, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter...(By the time I'd finished all the items they could climb on, by any stretch of the imagination, they'd both lost interest in the game and wandered off to find something else to do.) (that is one good thing about children. You learn to think again. Don't run with scissors makes sense to adults, but to a kid, it is full of loopholes. Don't run, don't walk really quickly, don't skip, don't jump, don't race, don't jump off the couch onto all the cushions, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals with scissors. Because I said so!)
You'd be surprised how such an innocent phrase can destroy a relaxing afternoon. I was sitting on our porch, enjoying the breeze and sun. Ever since I'd built the deck a couple of summers ago, my wife and I have enjoyed coffee in the morning or just taking a break to listen to the birds and the leaves rustle in the wind.
That's what I was doing this afternoon when my son and daughter came trooping out of the house with Wal-mart plastic bags on their shoulders. Now, I know they'd been planning somthing because both were far too happy. Usually when I catch them actively working together, they'll sheepishly admit to whatever bone breaking activity they've decided.
My son's proud declaration, without any prompting from me, left little doubt that we had a trip to the emergency room scheduled soon. Knowing him, and my daughter, it wouldn't be him with the cast(s) on tomorrow.
“Yes! We going parachuting!” His sister chimed in, clearly cutting off any objections I might raise, further proving that this was a grassroots uprising. She even added a little sass to those tiny hips as she sashayed after her brother. “Dear!” I called as I watched them clomp down the steps from the deck.
Last year, I'd finished chopping up the tree that had fallen across the yard, so they couldn't climb up on that to jump off. (Although there had been some really great places to climb, the tree had fallen directly across my hammock. It'd torn the straps loose and left the hammock itself relatively undamaged. Once I'd cut and split the tree past the hammock, my son and I dug it out from under the sawdust and branches. At first glance, it looked doubtful. But we stretched the hammock out, untangled the tangles and saw that it was savable. We just needed new straps to tie it to the tree. (The tree that fell took an evergreen tree, my hammock and at least of hundred feet of smaller trees and bushes, but didn't even graze the two trees holding the hammock, a sure sign that the hammock gods were watching over me.) But, being the careful planner that I am ( Stop snickering, that is just rude) I didn't automatically grab the duct tape. (All right, I did. But I stopped before I'd used the whole roll to secure the hammock. My daughter was standing there, hope and pride radiating from her blue eyes. She wanted her turn to rock with me in the hammock. I'll trust my life to duct tape anytime, but not hers.) I found the heavy duty straps that, according to the directions, were capable of securing the space shuttle. Several wraps around each tree and in the hooks on the hammock and we were back in business. I carefully slid in while my kids watched, each holding their breath for the swing test. The backwards somersault I did when the strap gave loose didn't knock the air out of my lungs. It was the sudden stop as I hit the wood pile that did that. My daughter rushed to make sure I was all right. I could just make out my son's giggling as she made sure I was alive. (He has a lot of ground to make up to get back in the will.))
“Your children are going to kill themselves!” I called from my seat on the deck.
“So?”
“Shouldn't one of us stop them?”
“I'm cooking dinner.” In the game of life, apparently “cooking dinner” trumps “sitting on the porch relaxing”.
My kids came trooping back across the porch, the parachutes still on their shoulders. But this time, they each had a stuffed animal outfitted with a parachute. Neither of them met my gaze as they walked by, but I could feel the panic radiating from the stuffed animals.
There was a fairly good chance that the stuffed animals would test the parachutes first... I relaxed for a few more minutes.
“Hey! I have an idea,” levitated me from the chair as my daughter disappeared around the corner. Her “ideas” while usually mechanically sound rarely take into full account the limitations of the human body.
“Daddy, we're just playing.” My son managed to sound persecuted as I ran up.
I could have used logic and explained that their body mass was more than the plastic of the wal-mart bags could slow, especially over a short distance. But that would have gotten me a blank stare until the short distance, then his sister would have figured out a way to get up on the roof just to prove me wrong.
Instead I fell back on parental rules. “No playing on the stairs, the deck, the roof, the kitchen table, the kitchen counter...(By the time I'd finished all the items they could climb on, by any stretch of the imagination, they'd both lost interest in the game and wandered off to find something else to do.) (that is one good thing about children. You learn to think again. Don't run with scissors makes sense to adults, but to a kid, it is full of loopholes. Don't run, don't walk really quickly, don't skip, don't jump, don't race, don't jump off the couch onto all the cushions, blankets, pillows and stuffed animals with scissors. Because I said so!)
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