The Adventures of E Squared: Road Trip

Overall I would say our road trip was a complete success. We had a few curveballs thrown in there, but we overcame and conquered! When you have a child, you have no choice. Our four hour road trip started with E taking a 2.5 hour nap...amazing! My outlook on the rest of the trip at this point was quite positive. WE CAN DO THIS! Chris made me check on E's breathing/airway status a couple of times. We were beyond disbelief, borderline euphoric. E finally started stirring around, so we decided to stop and eat and let little man stretch those chunky legs out. By the time we left the restaurant, it was getting dark. We loaded E back in the torture device known as the car seat and headed into the wild blue yonder. E apparently is not fond of dark car rides. About five minutes into this ride E starts crying. Being the good Mommy I am, I jump in the back seat and try to console E with all of my magic tricks. Paci, not working. Toys, not working. Blanky, not working. The crying continued. Next step, call the mother. She has more tricks up her sleeve than I do. I accredit that to her actually having common sense, unlike the fine specimen (me) that she made. Her answer, quite simple, why don't you turn the lights on in the car, maybe he's scared of the dark. My thought "Whatever Mom, it's not that easy." Of course I didn't verbalize this, my days of talking to my mother like that ceased when I got married. When my mom stopped being my arch nemesis and instead my best friend. Heck it was worth a shot. Flipped the switch and all crying ceased. Holy smokes! It worked! Maybe my Mom does know what she's doing. Five minutes later E's out like a light and I flip the switch back off. A few miles down the road we run into a DWI checkpoint. Lovely. E starts crying again. Even better. As the officer is shining the light in our vehicle, I am halfway craned over the seat trying to calm E. It was obvious the officer understood our situation. He pretty much said, "May I see your license (without really looking). Okay, go ahead." Completely disregarding my two month expired inspection sticker. Thank you fine officer of the law.

We get to the hotel and check in, which was about a twenty minute wait. Nobody was at the front desk and E was still enjoying his ride on the fuss bus. When the lady finally decided to show up, she had issues figuring out if we had paid or not. This "euphoric" trip was going to hell in a hand basket fairly quick. We tote all of our luggage, primarily E's, upstairs. I start unpacking the important things; i.e. the pack and play. Because it is way past E's bedtime. On this part of the story, remember the common sense gene I'm lacking. Chris and I spend thirty minutes trying to figure out how to open the pack and play. I remember when my mom and I sat it up for the first time we had an issue, but I couldn't quite remember what. Pregnancy makes you lose brain cells, I'm certain of it. So I called Mom again, for the second time in an hour. She wasn't surprised. She couldn't remember either. Mom fails, youtube it! Apparently you can't put the bottom down first, you have to pull the sides up first. Who would've thought?! Pack and play up- check. Next up- bath time. I brought naked baby E to the bathroom. Low and behold, this bathroom has no bathtub, just a shower. Wonderful . I've never attempted to bathe a baby in a shower and that night wasn't going to be my first. Sink it is. I called for backup. Chris was in charge of holding. I awarded him the gold metal for worst holder EVER. E was slipping and sliding all over the place. I just wanted to get this kid bathed without any head injuries. It definitely ended up being the fastest bath in E history. Whew, kid was finally bathed and fed, time for night night. And out he went. But not for long. The day before we left I got the wise ideal to change E's formula- brilliant, I know. Why must I mess with a good thing? Because I always think I can make it even better. For the last couple of weeks E had been spitting up a lot, so I decided to try him on Enfamil AR since it seemed like his colic/belly issues were gone. This formula has rice starch in it so it weighs the formula down to stay in E's belly. The packaging claims with no constipation. Hmmmm. I'm going to disagree on that one. I'd like to see the research on that. Get where I'm going with this? We had a fourth passenger that showed up on our trip and its name was constipation. Mr. Constipation decided to wake our little angel every two hours. Miserable. Miserable. Miserable. Poor baby would wake up groaning and pushing, face as red as a tomato. I felt absolutely horrible.

At 5:00 in the morning I decided a WalMart trip for our old formula and some prune juice was necessary. Did I mention I forgot the Garmin? So I was going strictly off iPhone map directions. This from a person who couldn't get herself out of a cardboard box. I got lost there and on the way back. And it was only eleven miles away. Chris finally called to make sure I was still alive and wasn't in the back of a rape van. I would have driven 100 miles for that formula. I came through the hotel room like Super Mommy to the rescue and of course E had fallen back asleep by this point. The attack of prune juice would have to wait. When E decided to rise Uncle J made a stop by to play. E loved it! A new face.

It's finally time for the game. E is mesmerized by the field. His first real ball game and surely not his last. E napped during the game twice. Once in his stroller and once in Nonnie's arms. He had a few bouts of straining and pushing. Still no poop. It comes time to leave, so we pack it up and head back to the B-town, constipated baby and all.

The trip home starts like the trip there. A sleeping baby. Then as soon as we hit Ruston, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Poor boy is screaming in pain. Pit stop. We take E out of the car seat and let him stretch. Thinking this will help with is clogged bowels. The best we could get was one little rabbit terd. This whole thirty minute process of push and pause is taking place outside of our car door, in the parking lot. E finally settles down and is content with his one pellet. We trot off into Quiznos for some dinner. Dinner was uneventful. As we head out to the car to finish the last leg of our trip, E begins another thirty minute routine. We have been at this stop for about an hour and a half now. E's grand finale was quite impressive. The only way I could describe it is it probably felt like a pine cone exiting his butt. I think Chris and I did a happy dance right then and there.We knew our fourth passenger had finally left. It's amazing how our world revolves around our child's bowel movements. E is usually quite regular, so when he's not we assume the worse. He's going to get a head bleed from pushing too hard....he's going to get an obstructed bowel. Yes, we over exaggerate a little. Maybe a lot. The rest of the trip was traveled in quiet peace.

We faced some definite obstacles in our journey, but we survived and regardless of the curveballs we had a great time.