After a canceled road trip to visit everyone in the cities back in November, I decide that my 3 day weekend in February would be the perfect time to take our post-poned trip. I watched the weather for two weeks before we left and all looked good so Saturday morning we headed out, loaded with toys, snacks, movies and prayer that we could make it in less than 10 hours. Here is how our trip went (in about 6 1/2 hours...thank GOD)!!!
We start watching a movie and all is good. Then, Harper throws her blanket on the floor and starts crying, she screams "drop it my blankie Mommy" when I don't pick it up mid-fall all the while Cayden is covering his ears and yelling at Harper to stop crying because Mommy needs to drive, I pick up blankie and toss it back on her lap, she laughs, hides under blankie, talks to "Monkey," demands her sippy, then she's done with her sippy, she wants her sunglasses, her glasses fall down and OMG meltdown, she wants her glasses back on, she's all done with her glasses, she wants her iPad (a.k.a. her leap pad), she's done playing iPad, she wants her iPad back, she wants her puppy, she needs help getting her puppy doctor tools out of the bag, she's all done playing puppy, she wants her baby, she throws her baby on the floor and starts crying, she screams "drop it baby Ariel Mommy" when I don't pick it up mid-fall while Cayden is again covering his ears and yelling at Harper to stop crying because Mommy needs to drive, I pick up baby Ariel and give it back to Harper, etc, etc. the whOLE FREAKING WAY!!! Cayden, on the other hand, is a total traveling rock star and calmly sat in the backseat watching movies and playing on his iPad.
Our weekend in the cities went pretty well, except when Harper fell off the luggage cart as we were wheeling it back down to the lobby because she wouldn't sit still (or walk) and when Harper wouldn't sit in the stroller at the Mall of America and I had to carry her for the whole 3 + hours we were there and when we got back to our hotel room and Harper wanted to jump on the bed and watch Spongebob instead of going to sleep and Cayden had finally had enough of her, etc, etc the whOLE FREAKING TIME!!!
Sunday night I found out that the weather I had been watching so very closely was going to turn to crap Monday so I made sure we were packed and loaded and on the road early, as in load the car while the kids sleep and wake them up 5 mintues before we should be walking out the door early. We made one stop between Plymouth and Fargo because Harper was having a major meltdown in the back seat because, I don't f-ing know, she dropped something and I didn't catch it mid-fall. Then she slept, peacefully the rest of the way to Fargo for which I will be eternally grateful because the last 43 miles of our drive that day had me with white knuckles gripping the steering wheel and sweating like a pig because there was so much snow blowing across the interstate that I couldn't see 5 feet in front of the car.
Our snow day in the blizzard in Fargo found us shopping at Toys R Us and then at the mall, because what else is there to do when it's blizzarding and you have 4 hours to kill before hotel check-in? When we got to the mall I found a great parking spot, threw my keys in my purse and went around to get Harper out of her carseat. I set my purse on the floor of the backseat and then decided I would dig the stroller out of the back. I closed Harper's door and that's when I realized I had just locked my kids and my keys in my car while we were 2 1/2 hours away from the closest spare key. Did I mention that it was blizzarding out and my mittens were also locked in the car? I went around to Cayden's side of the car and yelled in to him to climb over the seat to the front and hit the unlock button. Turns out that when you lock a Honda Pilot using the door lock button and then your keys are in the car, you can't unlock the doors with the door button. You can only do this using the remote. I then had to yell to Cayden to dump everything in my purse out onto the floor of the car to find the keys and which button to push to let me in to thaw out because, did I mention it was BLIZZARDING OUTSIDE?
After another 2 hours shopping in Fargo where Harper would only ride in the stroller if she wasn't buckled in so she could get down whenever we stopped moving, more hotel pool swimming, Cayden, Harper and I all sleeping in the same bed and another 2 1/2 hours in the car that went a whole lot like the 6 1/2 hours it took us to get to the cities we finally made it home late Tuesday afternoon and Hurricane Harper has been glued to my @*& ever since.
Do I even need to ask if you now understand why it has taken me a week to sort of get my sanity back and even want to re-visit this trip?
