It's a positively surreal sensation to have three children and a dog one day and then just have one child the next. The two youngest girls and the dog have been packed off to Grandma and Grandpa's house and I'm left with the oldest. I have been mentally flopping between giddiness and melancholy since the day we parted ways. I know Caelan and McKenna are having a blast. I know that I am enjoying my time with Evelynn, too. But it's just plain weird.
Evelynn still wants to share everything with her sisters (which is a gesture I'm pleased to see so deeply instilled in her). This sharing goes from food to hairbows to toys. Evelynn wants to save things she can't share. She's finally (after six days) realizing that she is the only one. She flops between giddiness and melancholy. "We can go into the store together? I don't have to ride in the cart? We don't have to have the extra long cart? We don't need diapers? We can go in to eat?..... But I want Caelan to have a hairbow, too. But that's McKenna's, I can't play with it. When Caelan comes home, she can eat that. I'm getting my hair cut? Yes! We can go to the library? We're going to the bookstore? Can I get Caelan a book? Caelan doesn't have this book. McKenna would think that's so cute."
Things I've dreaded doing and things I'm constantly doing with the whole family home, have dwindled. Instead of two loads of laundry a day, I did three yesterday and I'm done. All the clothes are clean. My house is clean. Normally, I wash the dishes at least three times a day. I decided not to wash the dishes for two days. The sink was not even full when I did do them. If I want to go somewhere, we go. Usually it takes twenty minutes to get out the door. I have not picked up any toys in six days. Evelynn has cleaned her room every day. I have had a hundred more conversations with Evelynn than usual. She has no one else to talk to. And sometimes she talks to herself. We went on a bike ride. Evelynn had the entire bike trailer to herself. We've gone shopping. It's been too long since I've seen the inside of a dressing room. I have told Evelynn to be quiet three times in the last six days. I tend to say it a dozen times in one day. All in all, though, I miss the bustle. I feel lazy. It's amazing what two extra little bodies create in just cleaning and noise alone. So my house is too clean and far too quiet. I miss my babies and so does Evelynn.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Cross Country
It's a good thing I love to drive and I know that I've put more miles on my kids than an average adult has under their belts. It's 1500 miles one way to my hometown and 1200 to my in-laws. Needless to say, Evelynn has logged at least 40,000 miles. Impressive, considering she just turned five. The trip we took last week was a quick two day journey, a mere 1460 miles. It was heavenly. With three kids, the dog, the luggage, and of course, myself, in the Jetta, we hit the road. Two 12 hour driving days loomed ahead of me. I looked forward to it and I dreaded it. The Jetta does not have a DVD player. And two of my children now need a bathroom break. This trip had the potential to be ugly despite going only half the distance.
Surprisingly, however, the trip went off without too many set backs. I had intended on leaving the house by 6am, but it ended up being 6:30. This first set back being my own doing. Hey, a girl has to see the future queen of England at least get down the aisle. We somehow managed to stop every 2-3 hours after that. The girls had their pillows, blankets and one special toy apiece. I had easily accessible snacks and drinks, and a charged/loaded iPod. YES! Turns out that an iPod is just as good as a DVD player.
With so much travel, I have found over the years that I get 'attached' to my fellow travelers. That there are other family travelers along the same stretch of highway can be comforting and a decent gauge of progress. I shared the road with a Jeep with a license plate that said "TEXN4EVR" (and yes, I loved that and would like to steal it for my own, but find myself married to someone not from Texas who would never allow it), a Kia SUV with the plate "PUGLUVR" (I'm not keen on pugs, but I have a sweet friend who is), and an extra large, dually Doge Ram four door truck (I follwed this family forever... at least 600 miles). And to top off the list, I shared the road with Lady Gaga. I'm personally not a fan, but it was hilarious to see other cars on the road slow down and the see all the cell phones out snapping pictures as they drove by. And, of course, I shamelessly joined the masses and whipped my phone out, too.
There was one stretch of road, however, that threw my momentum out the window. About 7-8 hours down the road in southern Virginia, all traffic slowed down for what was posted as "road work". It was work, all right. Not paving or striping or what one thinks of with construction. The highway quickly became a parking lot. Not from the the road work, but severe rubbernecking. It's one of those moments in life where time slows down and your mind feels numb as it tries to keep up with the intake of information from the eyes and to emotionally process those images. It has been years since I have seen tornado damage, but I have never seen it up so close before. The tops of trees were completely twisted off, hundreds of trailers from a truck stop littered the median and the shoulder of the road. One trailer rested heavily in the median, about 15 feet from me, battered and smashed.
As I was processing the view from my side of the car, Evelynn asked "Mom, what are those people doing?" I looked out her window and was unable to talk for a moment. The emotional understanding became greater than the images. Homes had been levelled, others a dumping ground for the trailers across the street. These were homes and the families were searching through the rubble. For some homes, the structure was still visible. A few of the homes were left with the foundation. It was one of those moments as a parent, that I wanted to hide her eyes and not have to explain the images, but I knew there was no choice in this matter. We have talked about tornadoes (having spent some minutes in the basement the week before for one), but this was more real than anything I could have said. She understood the images and she began to understand the emotions of loss.
With so many miles logged and thousands more in the future, there was bound to be a trip where there would be little I could do to prevent her from seeing some kind of devastation. I think we handled it well. We slowly moved on and put it behind us. For those of us on the road, it was a brief period of humbling reality, understanding that everything we know can fall apart in a matter of seconds. The remaining hours of travel went smoothly, but Evelynn revisited the conversation many times. It's hard enough for an adult to process and I'm glad that we've had open dialogue about it.
Surprisingly, however, the trip went off without too many set backs. I had intended on leaving the house by 6am, but it ended up being 6:30. This first set back being my own doing. Hey, a girl has to see the future queen of England at least get down the aisle. We somehow managed to stop every 2-3 hours after that. The girls had their pillows, blankets and one special toy apiece. I had easily accessible snacks and drinks, and a charged/loaded iPod. YES! Turns out that an iPod is just as good as a DVD player.
With so much travel, I have found over the years that I get 'attached' to my fellow travelers. That there are other family travelers along the same stretch of highway can be comforting and a decent gauge of progress. I shared the road with a Jeep with a license plate that said "TEXN4EVR" (and yes, I loved that and would like to steal it for my own, but find myself married to someone not from Texas who would never allow it), a Kia SUV with the plate "PUGLUVR" (I'm not keen on pugs, but I have a sweet friend who is), and an extra large, dually Doge Ram four door truck (I follwed this family forever... at least 600 miles). And to top off the list, I shared the road with Lady Gaga. I'm personally not a fan, but it was hilarious to see other cars on the road slow down and the see all the cell phones out snapping pictures as they drove by. And, of course, I shamelessly joined the masses and whipped my phone out, too.
There was one stretch of road, however, that threw my momentum out the window. About 7-8 hours down the road in southern Virginia, all traffic slowed down for what was posted as "road work". It was work, all right. Not paving or striping or what one thinks of with construction. The highway quickly became a parking lot. Not from the the road work, but severe rubbernecking. It's one of those moments in life where time slows down and your mind feels numb as it tries to keep up with the intake of information from the eyes and to emotionally process those images. It has been years since I have seen tornado damage, but I have never seen it up so close before. The tops of trees were completely twisted off, hundreds of trailers from a truck stop littered the median and the shoulder of the road. One trailer rested heavily in the median, about 15 feet from me, battered and smashed.
As I was processing the view from my side of the car, Evelynn asked "Mom, what are those people doing?" I looked out her window and was unable to talk for a moment. The emotional understanding became greater than the images. Homes had been levelled, others a dumping ground for the trailers across the street. These were homes and the families were searching through the rubble. For some homes, the structure was still visible. A few of the homes were left with the foundation. It was one of those moments as a parent, that I wanted to hide her eyes and not have to explain the images, but I knew there was no choice in this matter. We have talked about tornadoes (having spent some minutes in the basement the week before for one), but this was more real than anything I could have said. She understood the images and she began to understand the emotions of loss.
With so many miles logged and thousands more in the future, there was bound to be a trip where there would be little I could do to prevent her from seeing some kind of devastation. I think we handled it well. We slowly moved on and put it behind us. For those of us on the road, it was a brief period of humbling reality, understanding that everything we know can fall apart in a matter of seconds. The remaining hours of travel went smoothly, but Evelynn revisited the conversation many times. It's hard enough for an adult to process and I'm glad that we've had open dialogue about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)