Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Notes From The Road - Seattle - Part One

Day one of our road trip to Seattle to introduce Monty to his Grandpa, Uncle, Aunt and cousins on Kurt's side.  We got a late start.  I collapsed into bed at 9pm last night after a long day and some white wine.  Monty woke up every two hours to eat.  Kurt usually does one of the night time feedings, but we needed to save the bottles for the car trip.  He kindly let me sleep in until 9 which is when we anticipated leaving.  And of course I hadn't packed.  I'll hand it to us, though.  It only took us two hours to get out of the house.  That with the showering, packing, feeding Monty, shoving scrambled eggs and coffee in our faces, and loading the stuff, the boy and the two dogs into the car.  We would have hopped right on the 5 north, but I had to deal with some finances on the west side which was well worth it as I'm now the owner of a used Prius that I got for a song from a friend who's upgrading to an electric version.
(Side bar:  My 1996 Honda died on the off ramp of the 10 Freeway a few weeks ago.  I'm lucky there wasn't any traffic because if I had had to stop on the freeway, I would have been broken down in the middle of traffic.  As it was, I knew the car was about to go and I was praying it would wait til I got off the freeway.  So, I made it to the off ramp where she quietly passed over to the great parking lot in the sky.  Before I had the chance to call AAA, a sheriff came by.  He found me weeping behind the wheel and asked me what was wrong.
"My car broke down," I sputtered.
"Is there anything else wrong?"  He asked.
"Well, it's a million degrees and my baby is in the car."
"Okay.  Is there anything else?"
In lieu of saying "Is that not enough things wrong?  Because that feels like a lot of things wrong." I just cried harder.
He pushed me to a gas station where I called AAA and tried to feed my screaming son under the glaring sun and withering stares of customers.  My therapist showed up with a banana and a protein drink and entertained Monty while I dealt with the tow truck guy and waited for Kurt to show up from clear across town.  Oh yeah, I was on my way to therapy when this all went down, where, I should mention, I was planning on complaining about the enormous stress of driving around in a dinosaur on its last legs with a very young infant in the car...)

It's 4:45pm and we're about 160 miles south of Sacramento.   We're hoping to make it to Redding before the end of the day. 

Monty is a trooper.  He's pretty chill.  He cries with purpose.  He's hungry or he's tired or he has shit in his pants.  Frankly, those are all things that make me want to cry, too, so I can't really blame him.  More often than not, it's something we can fix. 

In the department of TMI, my digestive system seems to have rewired itself since I gave birth.  I've never had the hardiest system, but ever since I gave birth I've had one bout of gas that almost took me to the hospital and often my stomach hurts within minutes of eating.  The pediatrician recommended I cut out dairy, all green vegetables, beans, soy, onions and garlic in order to keep Monty's gas down to a minimum.  We stopped at Taco Bell a couple hours ago as that was the lesser of about five available evils at the rest stop.  In one meal I had four of the six forbidden foods.  So, you know, go me.

We meant to stop at The Pump Station before we left town for a car adapter for my pump, but we forgot and somehow there has not been a single Target in the 235 miles we've driven so far.  Target, like Starbucks is one of those place that is everywhere until you actually need it.  So, I have neither fed Monty nor pumped since 11 this morning.  I'm probably irrevocably diminishing my supply and am therefore the worst parent ever. 

I haven't taken any pictures of Monty today, so here is one from a couple weeks ago.  He has started rolling over and laughing.  He is the absolute tits.  I swear.