Did someone say rooooad trip?

I skimmed over all of my old posts and noticed  that at first I was doing all of these light, breezy posts based on ‘observations.’  Once the baby arrived my posts have been much sappier and lacking in the humor department…they have also all been just about our immediate little family.  The truth is, I was instructed to stay on the top floor of our home for the first two weeks, so I couldn’t really do much about not having observations about anyone or anything outside of our home.  Plus, when you have a baby your hormones are all over the place and you are EXHAUSTED.  Um, yeah, those are my excuses. Nuff said.

So I was thinking I should try to find something humorous to write about. Bad idea.  Whether you are religious or not, sometimes the phrase “Ask and you shall receive” really holds true.  As does, “Be careful what you wish for.”  I can stop looking for something funny to write about because it landed right in my lap…

My Mother-in-Law (referred to as Mima from here on out) took a bus from D.C. to NYC yesterday so that she could accompany me and the two little boys on a drive down to Bethany Beach, DE. Yes, I am very lucky in the mother-in-law department!  She arrived around noon and we went straight to John Xavier’s 4 week doctor appointment. (Sidenote: He is now 22.5 inches and 9 lbs., 13 oz.! He was 7 lbs., 4 oz. and 20 inches at birth.  Growing like a weed!)  We ended up leaving the city around 3:45 pm and when I checked the directions on my oh, so handy dandy iphone, it said it would only take 3 hours and 40 minutes. “Wow,” we thought, “We can make it there in time for dinner!”  Hmmm, should we go to Isabella’s?  Stop at Giant and cook at home? Ohhh, how about Grotto’s Pizza? Yes, definitely Grotto’s. Mmmm, their pizza is so good! Can’t wait.

Well, go ahead and add another idiom to those I should have paid attention to yesterday: “Don’t count your eggs before they have hatched!” (Or is it “Don’t count your chickens before they have hatched”? Oh well, either way – DON”T count them yet!)  Yes, we arrived at our final destination at 12:15 am. TWELVE FIFTEEN AM!! Did you hear me???? Eight and half hours later.  We could have made it all the way to Raleigh, North Carolina in eight and a half hours.  Instead, we made it to Delaware.

Needless to say, we didn’t eat dinner at Grotto’s Pizza.  You might be asking yourself, “Are they morons? Did they drive to Canada by mistake? Did they try not taking any highways or something?” Nope.  As I mentioned before, I simply entered the address into my iphone and started following each step.  Now, where I did mess up is not going through and checking each step of the directions prior to departure.  However, I would wager that the majority of you do not check each step of the directions before you leave. Am I right?  It showed me arriving at the correct destination and it seemed like an appropriate amount of travel time.  That was all I needed to know.

Here is the new information I learned: The car symbol in the directions ‘app’ that comes with the iphone does NOT actually simply represent ‘driving directions.’  News to me.  I always thought Car = Drive.  Not so, my friends, not so.  That stupid (I’m still a little angry) phone gave me DRIVING (for a CAR) directions that included going on a FERRY (NOT a car)!!!  I kid you not.

We drove all the way down to Cape May before realizing that it was trying to send us on a ferry in order to reach our destination.  Did I mention?  A FERRY!!!  So, we drove all around trying to figure out how to get over to the New Jersey Turnpike.  You’d think this would be easy but our phones just kept telling us to go to that dumb ferry – which mind you, costs $70 AND stops running at 6 pm, so even if we wanted to go on it, we couldn’t.  So, we had to do things the old fashioned way and – gasp! – use a map to try to figure it out.  This did not go so well.  We finally stopped to fill our stomachs (and rest our little brains, exhausted from all of that map use) at a Chili’s.  Then we did a few more laps of driving the wrong direction on any road we came across. Then we somehow ended up in Atlantic City. (I swear.) Then we finally found ourselves on the right expressway – in the right direction! – to get ourselves back to the New Jersey Turnpike.  And then? Then came the highlight of the  night. I realized I needed to pee. Urgently. There were no ‘Travel Plazas,’ so we pulled off on an exit that proclaimed it had several fast food restaurants.  They didn’t mention that they were two miles down a nothing road. When we got to the strip of restaurants they were all just closing and nobody would let me in.  I even tried sticking out my ‘just had a baby belly’ and rubbing it, as though it were an ‘I’m about 5 months pregnant’ belly and pleading with them through the locked door. Pathetic. And still to no avail.

Mom, you might want to stop reading for the next few lines.  You are going to be horrified.

We had to pull up next to a Taco Bell dumpster so that I could ‘pop a squat.’ (So sorry, but I honestly don’t know how to say that in a non-vulgar way.  Let’s be honest, it’s a vulgar act, it deserves it’s vulgar title.)  Thankfully, we were in the Car of Many Baby Wipes, but it is still pretty horrific and traumatizing to have to crouch down and pee behind a dumpster in front of your mother-in-law.  It was probably pretty bad for her, too. I don’t really know because we haven’t spoken of it since and probably never will.  It’s for the best.

We managed to get back on the highway and I got a call from my husband saying “Please tell me you are not still on the New Jersey Turnpike.”  Thank goodness I had just emptied my bladder, because I probably would have peed my pants. “NOOO!” I shouted, “We haven’t even made it TO the New Jersey Turnpike yet!” Hahahaha…Mima and I were laughing pretty hard at this point. It’s laugh or cry, people, laugh or cry.

So, we are here. And as I said to Mima toward the end of our little journey, “Man, thank GOD I don’t have some horrible Mother-in-Law, because then this whole thing would have been even worse!”  Dinner tonight? Grotto’s Pizza, baby!