Holidays

Holidays!!!
That word stirs up some strong emotions in me, it used to be one of joy and anticipation and the thrill of the upcoming adventure.....now this word, this horrible, horrible word and the passing of time and change in my own life has left me a changed woman on the notion of holidays. "Holidays"....I shudder at the thought of them, my eye starts to twitch my heart races and I start to sweat...My head swims with memories, first the holidays I loved, then the ones I enjoyed and thought were OK.... and then the realization that the good old days are gone and any enjoyment that I may experience again are years, -light years at this point- away and I am brought back to a more recent holiday memory. ( There are so many stories from the past three years that I will just give you a small dose of a very recent one) Actually VERY recent, yesterday as a matter of fact.
It begins with a small summary...my husband LOVES to camp, I cant even describe how much he loves it. Campfire smell and dirty fingernails from a lack of showers are his biggest turn on. I do like to camp too, I do NOT like to camp with 4 babies. Thus my newest requirement for this summer was if he wanted to camp I need some sort of modern convienences to help me and to my shock and delight Chad decided it a good idea to buy a a 5th wheel! This is pretty cool as I never thought he would actually do it....so now we have " a house on wheels! as Mia calls it. I was thrilled, then reality set in.... First we needed a hitch to actually pull this thing, so this is where the " good" ( note I use that word loosely) ideas begin.
"Better to go to Edmonton to get one, it would be cheaper"...
"Better to install it himself, it would be cheaper"
"Better that we take a mini holiday to Edmonton and go visiting and get the hitch all at the same time, save us another trip later" hmmm good idea...this was actually my idea, silly, silly girl, have I not learned anything in the last few years???
oh and the cherry on the sundae, the bestest best idea of them all!? We drive down in separate vehicles for many reasons I will not go into now....at the time seemed a " good idea" again, have I not learned anything?? So I get to take the van with ALL KIDS, alone... and Chad drives his truck solo...to his credit he offered to take some kids but for some reason its so much more fun to ride with mommy! We LOVE mommy!....( really I think its the DVD player in the van, but I'll say its their love for me)
ok, I promise to get to the good stuff soon...it was a interesting trip, lots of time alone with the kids at my in laws house, ( as Chad was off and running to buy said hitch, look at other trucks with the neighbor to see how hitches are installed, then actually spending the 8+ hours to install this hitch...) which on a side note , I would in the future pay the $300 to have a hitch installed, really is $300 that much? Would have saved me a LOT of time where I was trying desperately to fulfill my never ending duties as a mom and at the same time be on my toes enough so only a small portion of my in laws collectibles and special Nick knacks were not totally destroyed my Coy the tank..sadly we did have a few casualties despite our best efforts, sorry Mom and Dad :(
ok ok, the best story...the drive home. Well we were off, Chad solo again in the truck, I tried but again no child was to be pawned off to Dad, and Me again, sole adult in a van with a 2 and a half old a 18 month old and 5 month old twins, ready to begin the 4+ hour drive home.
I was prepared as I could be. Everyone fed, changed, babies ready to take their first nap on the onset of our drive. I should be guaranteed at least 1 hour of quiet while the twins slept and the DVD did its job on the other two...but no...I had to stop for gas 20 minutes into the drive, ( bad planning number 1...NEVER stop for gas that early into a trip, I know this, I just slipped up this time) this stop in turn woke the twins and stirred Coy and Mia from their TV comas...and the fun began! Cut to 2 Hours later we are on highway 63, babies still crying even though a pit stop at the rest stop had them fed and changed they could not be soothed....we are only about an hour and a half from home, I am rattled already from the crying but I think I can take another hour before I crack..one more hour, that's all, we can do it!
Life and luck had another plan for me...who could have anticipated 3 over sized, crazy huge loads of god knows what kinds of equipment being sent up for the Oil plants in town. Arn't they supposed to do these kinds of things in the middle of the night when no one was on the highway?? SO here we are 5 hours into the drive, in a van, one adult 4 kids, going 55km an hour down highway 63 stuck behind this equipment which at one point I hoped fell off the trucks and hit my own van to just put me out of my misery....the twins relentless in their screams ( for such happy babies who never cry they sure do have stamina and a power house set of lungs on them) and now Mia two sippy cups of juice later has to pee...I am first in a caravan of ticked off drivers stuck behind this madness, I have no where to stop, there are no side roads to pull off onto, no rest stops, no safe place to even pull to the shoulder so Mia could just pee on the road...now I am almost in tears my patience has been chipped away to nothing, Mia is in tears from having to pee, the twins STILL in tears, and Coy, well the one high point, he has been sleeping through all this madness. Not even Dora and her backpack of useful things can get me out of this mess.....Well Mia and her stubbornness refuses to pee her pants, her bladder will have to literally explode, I REALLY don't want her to pee in her car seat anyway, so what to do, what to do????...I dig around in the diaper bag and find a diaper, ( oh yes I forgot to mention that while stopped 2 hours prior to feed the twins, I had another "good idea" and let the two big kids play in this big puddle to get rid of some energy, in turn they endedup soaked and dirty and getting rid of their clothes, so Mia has been naked this last leg of the drive) So I hand Mia a diaper, her and I together do a delicate ballet of getting it scooted under her little tush while she is still strapped in her car seat and while I try to keep my van on the road... low and behold, she pees...by the grace of god in the diaper and no where else! Our van is still in our lane of traffic and some of the crying stops! Yea! Could this be counted as a highlight to the trip???
So in conclusion I have learned some valuable lessons from this trip....I will NEVER again travel by myself with all 4 kids. ( not in the near future anyway) although Mia has a bladder of steel two sippy cups of juice are 1 too many, Coy sleeps better in a van full of crying people than he does in his dark quiet room, and did I mention I will never drive alone again?
So our next leg of " holidays" is fast approaching and we are packing the 5th wheel today...lets see what kind of fun this one brings

:)