Hello Memphis!
Since this will go down as the best Thanksgiving in the history of Thanksgivings, I will be blogging about each day seperately since each one was so awesome. Y'all are in for a treat - 6 days of serious blogging potential (since I'm including the Monday-catchup day as a part of the weekend) and good stories. Sit back, get your coffee and enjoy:)
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
In September when we were on our way home from our Labor Day weekend in Michigan Dave and I were talking about how much we love BFWW and her husband. We had spent Friday night with them at a wedding and we miss them. In the course of our conversation about how awesome they are, we talked about wanting to visit them in Memphis. But you see, we can't just go visit for the weekend - its an 8 hour drive, with three kids and you can't just go there on Friday night and come home on Sunday. Yes, physically you can, but that would suck - a lot.
In September when we were on our way home from our Labor Day weekend in Michigan Dave and I were talking about how much we love BFWW and her husband. We had spent Friday night with them at a wedding and we miss them. In the course of our conversation about how awesome they are, we talked about wanting to visit them in Memphis. But you see, we can't just go visit for the weekend - its an 8 hour drive, with three kids and you can't just go there on Friday night and come home on Sunday. Yes, physically you can, but that would suck - a lot.
We decided that Thanksgiving weekend would be perfect: Its a super-weekend because the holiday is on Thursday so we'd have a long time to visit, Dave wouldn't have to take extra time off of work, and BFWW and her husband really like to make turkey. So all signs pointed to go. We invited ourselves over and they accepted:)
Considering the fact that we had three children to travel with, we opted to leave around 5pm on Wednesday evening. I thought that would be perfect - we would get there just after midnight, and the girls would likely sleep most of the trip and we'd have a mostly peaceful drive and would be able to get up bright and shiny on Thursday morning to join in on the cooking project (uh, literally a project).
How could one, pretty intelligent person be oh so wrong? I mean oh-so-wrong?
I spent most of the day cleaning and picking up the house. I had packed our suitcase with all but the absolute last minute essentials on Tuesday, so Wednesday was cleaning day. We had a dogsitter coming for the weekend, so I wanted the house cleaned for her - and hey, who doesn't like to come home to a clean house rather than a dirty house?
We also had to shop. We had to get some food for the dogsitter, but more importantly Nora had earned herself a new movie for staying dry over-night for 14 nights in a row (something we've been working on for quite a while). So off to Target to buy some treats and a movie... I was proud of myself for only staying for an hour and getting home before I had wanted to get home. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and telling BFWW to leave me alone so I could get my house done and leave on time. We were also hoping that we could leave earlier than 5 if Dave could get out of the office sooner, so I was under the gun to get things cleaned up and done as early as possible.
We got on the road at 4:05 and were soooo excited. Two blocks later we had to turn around because we forgot to leave the money for the dogsitter and forgot to pack strollers. This is typical traveling for us - we ALWAYS come back once. So we were on the road at 4:15 and soooo excited.
Ryann and Georgia had not taken an afternoon nap so they nodded off fairly quickly. Nora whined for a long time about when she would get to watch her movie. We told her that she could watch it after dinner (we borrowed a portable DVD player and I suspected it only had a 2 hour battery so I didn't want to burn that too early - and I wanted Ryann to be able to watch, too). We eventually got Nora to stop and things were going smoothly.
At 6:30 we stopped for dinner at McDonalds. We told the girls that we were stopping and getting back on the road right away and they couldn't play in the playland. That would have worked fine if it hadn't been the busiest McDonalds in the Western Hemisphere. The only place to sit was in the playland area. Thanks, people. So they played, but were very good about leaving when it was time to leave - they were quite excited to go to Elise's house, so it didn't take much convincing.
7:30 - Back on the road, set up the movie and we're good to go. Georgia quickly falls asleep and I breathe a sigh of relief - the rest of the drive will be quiet. The girls will watch the movie and eventually fall asleep and Dave and I will be able to have some nice talking time.
Nope. Absolutely not the way it went. Nora and Ryann did fall asleep. Georgia on the other hand would whine and complain every 10-20 minutes. Every 10-20 minutes. She let us know that she was not at all happy to be in that car seat for that long. It was a pleasant experience. At around 11:30 she woke up and screamed for about 20 minutes and never fell back to sleep. Nice.
12:00 - We're in Missouri approaching Arkansas - Yea!!! Dave and I have had a decent trip - with the exception of Georgia's whines. We're looking for Exit 1. The exit numbers have been going down with every mile, we're close - very close. We cross over into Arkansas and suddenly the exits are now in the 280's. What? Mapquest is telling us to take exit 1. So you can all take a wild stab at what happens then... A fight. Yes, Dave and I were pretty nice to each other trying to figure out the directions and where we were going. He threw the directions at me at one point, then asked for them back (and I'm sure you can guess how I answered that:) And as quickly as that all happened, we saw exit 1. I don't know how it changed, I don't care - we were almost there:) And the fight was done immediately:)
We're approaching Memphis. The pyramid is coming up and I know from a previous trip that this means that we are minutes - like 5 minutes - away from BFWW's house. The excitement builds. We're there!!!!
We went inside, thought the girls would be able to transfer from car to bed while sleeping... Ryann did. Nora and Georgia stayed up to say hi for a little bit and then we were all off to bed and looking forward to the big feast the next day. Bed at 1:30, the project started at 8:30 so we had time to sleep.
And Georgia wanted absolutely nothing to do with going back to sleep. She was in our room in the pack and play and stood up screaming at the top of her lungs. I was willing to let her cry until she fell down and went to sleep, but Nora came in and said she was keeping her up - which meant that she was probably keeping many people up, so I got her out of bed and took her to bed with us. I have never done this, but I hear about so many moms who do, so I figured it would be the magic solution. Um, no. She wanted to play and bang her pacifier on the headboard. I finally got her calmed down by stroking her face, but she refused to fall asleep. I put her in the pack and play and stroked her face for 18 minutes of Baby Tad... she would look like she was falling asleep, but then her eyes would pop open to make sure I was still right there. I finally got her out and rocked her to sleep (something else I have never done and wasn't sure would work). I got into bed at 3:15am and was back up at 6:30 when the other girls got up. I was pretty happy about that.
We were off to a rough start for the weekend that I was so looking forward to for months. It didn't matter - in the morning I would be waking up and hanging out with BFWW for 3 whole days, non-stop. Could the outlook be any better? Not so much:)
Considering the fact that we had three children to travel with, we opted to leave around 5pm on Wednesday evening. I thought that would be perfect - we would get there just after midnight, and the girls would likely sleep most of the trip and we'd have a mostly peaceful drive and would be able to get up bright and shiny on Thursday morning to join in on the cooking project (uh, literally a project).
How could one, pretty intelligent person be oh so wrong? I mean oh-so-wrong?
I spent most of the day cleaning and picking up the house. I had packed our suitcase with all but the absolute last minute essentials on Tuesday, so Wednesday was cleaning day. We had a dogsitter coming for the weekend, so I wanted the house cleaned for her - and hey, who doesn't like to come home to a clean house rather than a dirty house?
We also had to shop. We had to get some food for the dogsitter, but more importantly Nora had earned herself a new movie for staying dry over-night for 14 nights in a row (something we've been working on for quite a while). So off to Target to buy some treats and a movie... I was proud of myself for only staying for an hour and getting home before I had wanted to get home. I spent the rest of the day cleaning and telling BFWW to leave me alone so I could get my house done and leave on time. We were also hoping that we could leave earlier than 5 if Dave could get out of the office sooner, so I was under the gun to get things cleaned up and done as early as possible.
We got on the road at 4:05 and were soooo excited. Two blocks later we had to turn around because we forgot to leave the money for the dogsitter and forgot to pack strollers. This is typical traveling for us - we ALWAYS come back once. So we were on the road at 4:15 and soooo excited.
Ryann and Georgia had not taken an afternoon nap so they nodded off fairly quickly. Nora whined for a long time about when she would get to watch her movie. We told her that she could watch it after dinner (we borrowed a portable DVD player and I suspected it only had a 2 hour battery so I didn't want to burn that too early - and I wanted Ryann to be able to watch, too). We eventually got Nora to stop and things were going smoothly.
At 6:30 we stopped for dinner at McDonalds. We told the girls that we were stopping and getting back on the road right away and they couldn't play in the playland. That would have worked fine if it hadn't been the busiest McDonalds in the Western Hemisphere. The only place to sit was in the playland area. Thanks, people. So they played, but were very good about leaving when it was time to leave - they were quite excited to go to Elise's house, so it didn't take much convincing.
7:30 - Back on the road, set up the movie and we're good to go. Georgia quickly falls asleep and I breathe a sigh of relief - the rest of the drive will be quiet. The girls will watch the movie and eventually fall asleep and Dave and I will be able to have some nice talking time.
Nope. Absolutely not the way it went. Nora and Ryann did fall asleep. Georgia on the other hand would whine and complain every 10-20 minutes. Every 10-20 minutes. She let us know that she was not at all happy to be in that car seat for that long. It was a pleasant experience. At around 11:30 she woke up and screamed for about 20 minutes and never fell back to sleep. Nice.
12:00 - We're in Missouri approaching Arkansas - Yea!!! Dave and I have had a decent trip - with the exception of Georgia's whines. We're looking for Exit 1. The exit numbers have been going down with every mile, we're close - very close. We cross over into Arkansas and suddenly the exits are now in the 280's. What? Mapquest is telling us to take exit 1. So you can all take a wild stab at what happens then... A fight. Yes, Dave and I were pretty nice to each other trying to figure out the directions and where we were going. He threw the directions at me at one point, then asked for them back (and I'm sure you can guess how I answered that:) And as quickly as that all happened, we saw exit 1. I don't know how it changed, I don't care - we were almost there:) And the fight was done immediately:)
We're approaching Memphis. The pyramid is coming up and I know from a previous trip that this means that we are minutes - like 5 minutes - away from BFWW's house. The excitement builds. We're there!!!!
We went inside, thought the girls would be able to transfer from car to bed while sleeping... Ryann did. Nora and Georgia stayed up to say hi for a little bit and then we were all off to bed and looking forward to the big feast the next day. Bed at 1:30, the project started at 8:30 so we had time to sleep.
And Georgia wanted absolutely nothing to do with going back to sleep. She was in our room in the pack and play and stood up screaming at the top of her lungs. I was willing to let her cry until she fell down and went to sleep, but Nora came in and said she was keeping her up - which meant that she was probably keeping many people up, so I got her out of bed and took her to bed with us. I have never done this, but I hear about so many moms who do, so I figured it would be the magic solution. Um, no. She wanted to play and bang her pacifier on the headboard. I finally got her calmed down by stroking her face, but she refused to fall asleep. I put her in the pack and play and stroked her face for 18 minutes of Baby Tad... she would look like she was falling asleep, but then her eyes would pop open to make sure I was still right there. I finally got her out and rocked her to sleep (something else I have never done and wasn't sure would work). I got into bed at 3:15am and was back up at 6:30 when the other girls got up. I was pretty happy about that.
We were off to a rough start for the weekend that I was so looking forward to for months. It didn't matter - in the morning I would be waking up and hanging out with BFWW for 3 whole days, non-stop. Could the outlook be any better? Not so much:)
7 comments:
i can't wait to hear how the rest of the weekend was... (hee hee)
I've been wondering for awhile, what does BFWW mean?
I think it's Best Friend in the Whole World...right?
I canNOT wait to hear the whole story over 6 days...come on!!!!
Oh the wonderful drive to Memphis. With 3 little girls. Did Jer sing the circus song for you guys too? Did you stop at the McD's by the Walmart? Isn't Missouri BORING?!? Did you get a ticket in Pulaski County?
A bit of advice. . .NEVER leave when children should be sleeping. :-) They won't. Amelia was awake from 2:30AM ALL THE FREAKING WAY to Hilton Head last year. 14 hours. And they wonder why we're not going this year.
Can't wait to hear the rest!
Take Jen's advice...promise me you'll never do that again...it only leads to pain and a very frustrated mommy! But Cudo's to you for your unwavering good attitude...on pins and needles for the next chapter. Great writing Jana!
Oh what fun it is to ride in a
car with a whining Georgia and a map that doesn't make sense about exit numbers,
hey!
Looking forward to reading more about your time in Memphis!
LOL.... love cars rides with little ones :)
Rick isn't allowed to touch maps while driving, just doesn't happen. I'm in charge and we all know it! ;)
waiting for day 2....
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