Our first move as a family was from NC to KY when Bella was six months old. This is one of those disastrous stories that I thought we'd never make it through, but now that it is all over and behind us, is quite funny. Bella was a wreck!! The selling of furniture and packing of boxes made her really nervous. She would let no one hold her except me, and occasionally Philip. She refused to sleep except in the arms of a standing Mommy, which meant that I had no sleep for days! Philip being the wonderful husband that he is tried everything he could to help and already had a lot on his plate taking care of the move, so he also had no sleep that week.
Moving day came and we were sooo far behind. We had no family in town and we happened to move a week when most of our neighbors and friends were not in town either, so we were mostly on our own. While we were moving to KY, we had to make several stops along the way to drop off boxes and furniture to be stored with family while we were overseas. So, we made stops in WV, IN, and OH. Deprived of sleep for days, we were totally exhausted, but finally finished loading. Our apartment had strict check out policies and we were responsible for a lot of cleaning. So, even though we had planned to start our journey that afternoon, we needed to stay until the cleaning was complete.
We were dillious. We bought some paint for touching up the walls. Philip was busy fixing something upstairs and assigned me the job of doing the touch ups. At 2am he came back downstairs to not only find me finished painting one entire wall, but half way through the next. "What are you doing?!?!" With tears streaming down my face, I was waving the brush around with a crazed look in my eye. I began to explain that I started the touch up, but the wet paint didn't look blended, so I continued to paint and it just never stopped. Not knowing weather to laugh or cry himself, he just said okay, gave me a hug, and moved on to his next job. Finally at 4am, we came to face the facts that we would not be moving that night/day whatever it was. Philip sent me to bed. What I mean by bed, is that Bella and I slept on the floor of our empty apartment on top of a sleeping bag. I woke about two hours later to our screaming insecure baby and Philip had just finished with the rest of the house. So, no sleep for him.
The housing office opened in one hour and we were supposed to be out before then. It was Philip's first time to drive a moving truck, or anything close to that size. And I would be following behind in our packed down Corolla with Bella. I should also mention that I cry really easily when I am tired. So, being more exhausted than ever before in my life, I was pretty much a walking zombie with a constant flow of tears. We were supposed to drive about 6 hours to my grandparents in WV that day. We made it a whole 15 minutes down the road before I needed to pull over. I was seeing double and not able to drive at the moment. My husbands agruement, that had been the debate of the morning, to stay in a hotel for awhile to get sleep before we left sounded more and more convinencing. BUT with Bella so out sorts I was even more confident that was a waste of money and she would still not allow me to sleep. So, I convinenced him and myself that I would be okay to drive after some cafffine (which I hadn't had in 15 months, from pregnancy and nursing).
We got back on the road, and our pit stop did help a lot. We were finally ready go!! We made safely to my Nanna's, got some rest and TLC. Everything was looking up and up. We got about an hour down the road the next day. I called Philip, again crying and now screaming, "There is poop EVERYWHERE!!" We pulled over at the next stop which was a lonely McDonalds in the middle of nowhere.
Bella began fussing in the back seat which usually meant she had lost her binky. This was before we had discovered the wonderful back seat mirror or the binky clip. As I had done so many times before, I reached back and felt for the binky in the bottom of her carseat. I found it and handed it to her, but as a brought my hand back around I realized it felt wet. I looked down to find that my hand was covered in poop! I adjusted the rear view mirror to find that the binky I had just handed Bella was also covered in poop. Yes, it was in her mouth. And now that she had discovered the mess, she rubbed it in her hair and everywhere. I had never seen so much poop!!!!
We took her into the McDonalds to get cleaned up. And by that I mean to give her a bath in the tiny sink in the bathroom. I should also mention that it was the only sink, so everyone coming in and out was not only disgusted but had to leave without a hand washing. As a overly concerned first time Mom, I was also freaking out calling the doctor and our mothers to find out what awful diseases she was now at risk for after putting the poop covered binky in her mouth. They all reassured me that she was fine. Next, we just needed to clean up the completely poop soaked car seat. There was no way around completely washing (and therefore getting it completely wet), which meant we couldn't put Bella back into the seat until it dried. We had to wait in that McDonalds for a couple hours until the seat was dry enough that we could make due.
After that, the trip was pretty uneventful. We made it finally, all in one piece with quite the story to tell.
1 comment:
I remember the three of you pulling in late at night exhausted, weary, but able to smile it was behind you!
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