Happy Holidays!.  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Elisabeth’s first Christmas was great, if relatively uneventful.  She behaved splendidly (sleeping is the best-behaved of behaviors, I do believe) in church at Christmas Eve service, until around 45 minutes in when she began emitting bodily noises so loud as to elicit shocked yet amused reactions from our fellow church goers.  I hastily removed her from the sanctuary.  Christmas found Elisabeth spoiled with teddy bears and dolls, books (yay!) and her first pair of Stuart Weitzman shoes (double yay!) from yours truly.  I just couldn’t resist.

The day was laid-back and relaxed, until it came time for me to cook dinner.  But I’m not going to go into that here.

No, the real excitement this holiday season preceded the official Christmas festivities: Elisabeth’s first road trip.  It was a week ago and the memory still stresses me out.

Damon’s extended family lives in Philadelphia, and we try to visit when we can.  Given that this has been quite possibly our busiest year yet, that hasn’t been often.  So with Damon on leave and our overseas move looming, we figured we had better make the trip when the rare time allowed.

Well, Damon figured.  As much as I wanted to show Elisabeth off to the fam I completely panicked at the prospect of (a) driving so far with a 5-week old, (b) leaving my house in shambles and fridge empty just days before hosting Christmas and (c) worst of all, exposing my not-yet-inoculated child to a slew of germ-y people, places and things beyond my control.  But family comes first, so off we went.

I still cannot comprehend how much stuff we packed.  If someone had looked into our car, they would have thought we were moving.  So. Much. Stuff.  Damon and I somehow crammed it all into our car, though how, I have no idea.

Pack N Play? Check!

Diapers? Check!

More diapers? Check!

Boppy? Check!

12 Changes of clothes? (Better safe than sorry!) Check!

Burp cloths. Onesies. Blankets. Nursing cover. Pacifier. Wipes.  And the list goes on.  Have I mentioned this was for a one night trip?  Yup, one night.

You’re probably thinking that I’m about to tell you what essential item we forget.  HA!  We didn’t forget any essential item!

I lied, we forgot hand sanitizer, quite possibly the MOST essential item given my commitment to protecting E. from the greatest of road-trip perils, as mentioned above: germs.  But hand sanitizer was easily acquired at a gas station, our second stop out of five.  Five stops for what should be less than a five-hour drive.  Do the math.  That’s a ridiculous road-trip stops/hour average.

We stopped just minutes after leaving the house because Damon realized he had scheduled a call to discuss his investments (great timing!), and I won’t let him talk on his cell while driving with the baby.  So he chatted and I fed the baby in the parking lot of a 7-11 just miles from our front door.  I was not pleased.  Then we had to go to base to apply for E.’s passport.  There I had to change her on one of the dirtiest chairs I have ever seen, because it was the only surface big enough, save the floor.  We finally left the base and headed toward Philly around 12:00.  GPS estimated our arrival at 4:30.  Four and a half hours?  (Plus the two we had already spent after leaving home)  Not too bad!  We’d only have to stop for one feeding during that time, so we’d probably arrive 5-5:30.  Or so we thought.  How naive.

Of course by this time it was practically lunch, so a mere one hour later we pulled into a McDonald’s (yuck, I know, but the options were sorely limited).  Eager to continue driving, Damon wanted to make a quick bathroom break and keep going, while in the name of efficiency I wanted to feed E. while we were already stopped.

“You can’t feed her in a McDonald’s parking lot,” Damon determined.

“As opposed to a 7-11 parking lot?”

“Well, you are not changing her in there.  It’s dirty!”

“Where else would you suggest?”  I pulled Mom rank and insisted we feed and changer her at the McDonald’s.  Hey, it actually had a changing table station – already leaps and bounds better than the bathroom at the passport application office.  We ate, Elisabeth ate, and then I changed her.  Upon strapping her back in her car seat, E. promptly pooped.

“I’d be a bad mother to wait to change her till our next stop, wouldn’t I?”

“Yes,” Damon replied, after swearing the men’s bathroom had no changing table station.

And so I darted back inside to change her yet again.  Oh yeah, it was raining.  And we had no umbrella or any sort of weather protector for E.  Parent fail.

An hour later we were FINALLY on the road again.  The next few hours passed easily enough, however the time came and E. needed to eat again.  She is SO demanding.  So we pulled into some gas station.  I scoped out the bathroom – no changing table.  No dirty chairs either.  Hmmm.  What a quandary.  I decided to feed her first and put off the dirty diaper dilemma.  For the third time that day I crammed myself, my boppy and my baby between the car seat and the car door, and tried to feed E. as discreetly as possible.  I was so over this.

“What should we do about changing her?” I asked Damon.

“Change her on your lap,” he suggested.

“Why don’t you change her on your lap?” I responded, a hint of bitterness in my voice.  After all, his arm wasn’t numb from being crushed against a car door frame for 30 minutes.

“You have more room back there,” he said, pointing to the steering wheel as if it would impede his ability to change a diaper.

“I certainly do not!” I retorted, gesturing with my good arm to the pillows and diaper bags and car seat cluttered around me.  “Besides your legs are bigger!  More surface area to change her!”

Despite this intelligent observation, I somehow ended up with diaper duty.  Luckily the rain eased up I realized I could change her on the seat rather than my lap. “You can’t do that!  People will see!” Damon exclaimed.

“Yes, you’re right.  People will see my lumpy, post-pregnancy butt sticking out of the car while I lean over and change a diaper.  But that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for our daughter.”

3 feedings, 4 nasty diaper changes, and several discussions on Baby’s best interest later, we arrived in Philly – 7-1/2 hours after leaving our house.

The actual visit went very well; Elisabeth delighted in meeting her relatives (I’m sure) and Damon and I got some quality time with them for what might be the last time before we head overseas.  More importantly, the sick cousins stayed a very respectful distance and as far as I can tell, E. contracted no infectious diseases or deadly viruses.  Phew!

And then it was time to drive home.

Anxious not to repeat the drive up, we left at 9PM, figuring E. would sleep most of the way.  She did, but still insisted we feed her at least once during the drive.  At around 1AM, we pulled into the sketchiest gas station on the eastern shore.  Damon positioned the car where he could overlook the parking lot and watch out for the drug dealers, drunks and vagrants who would almost certainly be hanging out at such a place.  Speaking of drunks, one almost backed into our parked car until Damon blared the horn at the last second.  Why did we stop here again?  Oh yeah – hungry, wailing baby.  We survived, and made it home a short two hours later.

Collapsing into bed, we vowed that next time, we’d fly.