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...
Showing posts with label Stripe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stripe. Show all posts
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
New Arrivals
This weekend, we started a major house cleaning. No, my wife’s mother was not coming over for a visit (well, yes she was, but that’s a story for a whole other article). No, this cleaning was for two new members of our family. I don’t know if my memory has faded over the past three years, but I am almost positive that we did not clean up and straighten this much when our daughter was born.
You might be thinking that in our senile old age, we’d gone and done the unthinkable and my wife was expecting twins. No, from her reactions and cleaning frenzy, this was much worse. I knew she was serious when I was banished to my basement to… organize. Everything had to be off the floor and put away. No big deal. Then she said that includes almost three years of old manuscripts, computer parts and… (wait for it…) all the paperback books had to be on the shelves. The upside of this is I found my weight bench.
When we told our family and friends of our plan, the reactions were varied. “Wow,” was the most sedate. “Are you crazy? That’s asinine!” was probably the most common (I’m paraphrasing since this is a family targeted blog.). We were cleaning and picking up to make sure the house (ok, mainly the kids’ toys) was ready for two dogs.
When our thirteen-year old miniature schnauzer died before Thanksgiving, my wife began the search for a new pet. My son took Pepper’s death hard, but we’d been preparing him for it and he knew his dog went to a better place. A few weeks later, he began talking about another dog. He even had the name picked out… Pepper II. The one after that would be Pepper III. (He got up to Pepper XIII)
We always planned to replace Pepper. Our kids loved him and enjoyed playing with him. He was my daughter’s shadow. (Especially after she’d eaten. When she switched to solid foods and began feeding herself, he gained enough weight to develop a waddle.) With the changes coming in the new year, we knew they were going to need playmates to keep up with them.
So, my wife went through the local rescue shelters. She found a fluffy white breed, called a bichon, and fell in love with it. I had two criteria and this breed met both. It had to fit through our dog door and I didn’t have to shave it. White was an added bonus. I’d be able to easily see it in the middle of the night right after I tripped over it.
Then she stumbled across two dogs that had been rescued. Stripe and his mother Honey. They’d both been rescued and were looking for a home. Hey were both house trained and used to children.
How did we go from one dog to two? (We heard that question from everyone. Why two?) Just after Christmas, we found out that we’d both be starting new jobs (This will be a whole other article.) and the dog would be home alone during the day. So two dogs made sense to us so they wouldn’t be lonely. Stripe and Honey were perfect for this. They’d been together for two years and Honey didn’t walk around babbling and drooling. (I’m hoping my wife will pick up some tips from Honey on how to stay sane with young children.)
When my son saw their pictures on the web page, they immediately had a home. We called and arranged the pick up. We managed to get my son to take off his coat and come back in the house since we couldn’t pick them up until the following day.
It’s been a week and both Stripe and Honey are acclimating well to their new home. There was a little confusion the first night. My daughter wanted Honey to sleep with her and my son wanted Stripe to sleep with him. With all of her stuffed animals and dolls, there’s barely enough room in her bed for my daughter, let alone a dog. Of course the dogs had their own agenda and spent most of the night exploring inside and outside.
My careful planning with the bichon was out the window, however. Honey is a German Shepard and Stripe is a Labrador/Shepard mix. Even though they are “medium” size dogs and the dog door is for medium dogs, Honey barely fit through. Each time she went out during that first night, I had to make sure she could get back in. I got a new dog door first thing in the morning and by mid-afternoon, had finished my third trip to Lowes and had it installed.
Stripe got his name from the line of white fur on his chest and stomach. Every other part of him is coal black. I mention this because we did have one escape. Stripe stayed close to the house and raced around exploring. It would have been much less nerve-wracking if he’d made his escape during the daylight. But he did it in the evening. It was just like a horror movie. I’d see a blur streak past out of the corner of my eye. When I looked, there was nothing but blackness. My two kids standing on the porch screaming did an adequate job of filling in for the mutilated teenage girls.
You might be thinking that in our senile old age, we’d gone and done the unthinkable and my wife was expecting twins. No, from her reactions and cleaning frenzy, this was much worse. I knew she was serious when I was banished to my basement to… organize. Everything had to be off the floor and put away. No big deal. Then she said that includes almost three years of old manuscripts, computer parts and… (wait for it…) all the paperback books had to be on the shelves. The upside of this is I found my weight bench.
When we told our family and friends of our plan, the reactions were varied. “Wow,” was the most sedate. “Are you crazy? That’s asinine!” was probably the most common (I’m paraphrasing since this is a family targeted blog.). We were cleaning and picking up to make sure the house (ok, mainly the kids’ toys) was ready for two dogs.
When our thirteen-year old miniature schnauzer died before Thanksgiving, my wife began the search for a new pet. My son took Pepper’s death hard, but we’d been preparing him for it and he knew his dog went to a better place. A few weeks later, he began talking about another dog. He even had the name picked out… Pepper II. The one after that would be Pepper III. (He got up to Pepper XIII)
We always planned to replace Pepper. Our kids loved him and enjoyed playing with him. He was my daughter’s shadow. (Especially after she’d eaten. When she switched to solid foods and began feeding herself, he gained enough weight to develop a waddle.) With the changes coming in the new year, we knew they were going to need playmates to keep up with them.
So, my wife went through the local rescue shelters. She found a fluffy white breed, called a bichon, and fell in love with it. I had two criteria and this breed met both. It had to fit through our dog door and I didn’t have to shave it. White was an added bonus. I’d be able to easily see it in the middle of the night right after I tripped over it.
Then she stumbled across two dogs that had been rescued. Stripe and his mother Honey. They’d both been rescued and were looking for a home. Hey were both house trained and used to children.
How did we go from one dog to two? (We heard that question from everyone. Why two?) Just after Christmas, we found out that we’d both be starting new jobs (This will be a whole other article.) and the dog would be home alone during the day. So two dogs made sense to us so they wouldn’t be lonely. Stripe and Honey were perfect for this. They’d been together for two years and Honey didn’t walk around babbling and drooling. (I’m hoping my wife will pick up some tips from Honey on how to stay sane with young children.)
When my son saw their pictures on the web page, they immediately had a home. We called and arranged the pick up. We managed to get my son to take off his coat and come back in the house since we couldn’t pick them up until the following day.
It’s been a week and both Stripe and Honey are acclimating well to their new home. There was a little confusion the first night. My daughter wanted Honey to sleep with her and my son wanted Stripe to sleep with him. With all of her stuffed animals and dolls, there’s barely enough room in her bed for my daughter, let alone a dog. Of course the dogs had their own agenda and spent most of the night exploring inside and outside.
My careful planning with the bichon was out the window, however. Honey is a German Shepard and Stripe is a Labrador/Shepard mix. Even though they are “medium” size dogs and the dog door is for medium dogs, Honey barely fit through. Each time she went out during that first night, I had to make sure she could get back in. I got a new dog door first thing in the morning and by mid-afternoon, had finished my third trip to Lowes and had it installed.
Stripe got his name from the line of white fur on his chest and stomach. Every other part of him is coal black. I mention this because we did have one escape. Stripe stayed close to the house and raced around exploring. It would have been much less nerve-wracking if he’d made his escape during the daylight. But he did it in the evening. It was just like a horror movie. I’d see a blur streak past out of the corner of my eye. When I looked, there was nothing but blackness. My two kids standing on the porch screaming did an adequate job of filling in for the mutilated teenage girls.
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