On Monday Caroline and I packed our bags and headed to Houston on a little road trip to see Mimi and Bops. They’d been in Houston for about a week already and we’d planned to visit after the fourth of July festivities were over but we had to wait until sometime after Friday because Caroline had an appointment to see the Orthopedist about her arm.
The doctor said she could quit wearing her splint which is fortunate considering I was about to declare it a health hazard. P said he thought she might give herself a staph infection.
Then of course I was very busy making pickles over the weekend and so it was Monday morning before we struck out on the open road to Houston. Actually, it was 12:30 before we left San Antonio because it was raining and I didn’t want to load the car in the rain.
Caroline was playing on her iTouch in the backseat and I was thinking about how boring I-10 is when all of a sudden she said, “Mom? Do you have something I can spit my gum out in? I need to spit out my gum.”
I searched frantically around the front seat and in my purse while attempting to still drive, looking desperately for a stray receipt, a napkin or a kleenex for her to use. I had nothing. Not one thing. Which is breaking like forty-two laws of motherhood.
I finally found half a movie ticket stub in the door of my car and handed it back to her. I figured it would be just big enough, but what I didn’t count on was the fact that she’d apparently shoved fourteen pieces of gum in her mouth when I wasn’t paying attention.
And then I heard her say, “Something is wrong with this gum” as I glanced in the rear view mirror in time to see her attempting to spit an enormous pink hunk of something into the tiny movie ticket stub. And inexplicably there was some sort of foam all around her mouth. It was like she’d contracted rabies in the back of the car.
“Where did you get that gum?”
“From the drawer in the kitchen”, she replied.
Yes. About that drawer in the kitchen. It’s where I store everything that I don’t want sitting on the kitchen countertops. It’s a great place to find three “D” batteries or a hot pink Sharpie, maybe a few pieces of pipe cleaner or some googly eyes left over from a craft project, but it’s not really the best place to find a fresh piece of gum.
A pack of three year old Juicy Fruit?
YES.
And so the gum made a horrendous mess and dripped down the front of her shirt and I wondered once again why I’m not capable of carrying any sort of wet wipes in my car. Nope. I just carry around ticket stubs to movies I saw six months ago. They are much more handy.
I went into MacGyver mode and suggested that she use some water from her water bottle to wipe the foam off her mouth along with part of a tote bag that she’d packed with books and movies which resulted in her pouring water down the front of her shirt and not really helping with the mess at all.
The good news is we only had two and a half hours left in the car and in the middle of nowhere.
By the time we made it to the next town her shirt was almost dry (Hurray for synthetic fabric!) but I felt like we probably needed a DQ Blizzard, an order of fries and a large Diet Coke to get us through and improve our general outlook on life.
Nutrition is very important.
Which is why I ordered Caroline’s Blizzard with extra Oreos and mine with extra Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.
Eventually we arrived at Bops and Mimi’s house and Caroline immediately went outside to catch lizards and frogs in their back yard. It’s her favorite hobby. I can’t really think about it too much, but I do my part by smiling and giving a thumbs up each time she comes to the back door with a new victim.
And in the last twenty-four hours we’ve eaten delicious Italian food, met friends at an indoor trampoline park (You will probably hear more about this tomorrow in a post entitled “Why I Can’t Walk Today” or “Forty-Year-Old Bladders Aren’t Meant for Jumping”.), ate some Mexican food, shopped the huge sale at Anthropologie and spent at least an hour in the enormous three-story Restoration Hardware where I experienced a bad case of couch infatuation.
Alas, the couch and I are not meant to be because my bank account would disown me.
And maybe P too.
But I could drag my beautiful couch to the street where I’d be living alone.
I’m not sure what we have in store for tomorrow, but I bet it involves a delicious meal somewhere. And maybe more shopping.
And definitely more fun.
Assuming I can walk.
I just hope there won’t be any gum involved.