Happy Trails

May 25th was Cecilia’s first birthday, so that means the obvious – on that same day exactly one year ago, I went into labor and gave birth.  And to celebrate sweet C’s first birthday, the four of us climbed into our Chevy Impala, and (quite fittingly, actually) launched an experience no less painful, no less irritating than the one which I endured on a hospital bed exactly 365 days before: The First Family Road Trip. 

Now, I’ve been on a Family Road Trip or two.  I have known the exhaustion of sitting mere centimeters from my sister and trying to prevent my leg from touching hers.  I have known the helplessness of having to stare straight ahead while my stepbrother points his index finger an inch from my face and taunts, “Not touching you!  Not touching you!”  I have known the frustration of being subjected without respite to the sound of my brother’s incessant and irritating breathing.  But we enjoy laughing about those things now – and Road Trip stories are an extremely prolific topic of reminiscence.  Cars just seem to bring out the hilarious in people.  There’s the one about the time that my sister threw her banana peel out the window and Mom, being in a Mood, claimed this littering to be the last straw and therefore pulled over and made her daughter go pick up the offensive peel, despite my sister’s protestation that it was biodegradable.  Then there’s the one about the time that I, at age 9, declared from the backseat that I had to go to the bathroom, and that it was so urgent that Dad should just pull over at the next available place which was, by my determination (and without my knowledge of what type of establishment it was) the Erotica.  Making my parents’ suppressed laughter even harder to conceal was my innocent pronunciation of it as “arrow-TEE-kuh.”  Ah, good times. 

And the good times keep on rollin’, with Ellen at age three-and-a-half, and Cecilia at (exactly) age 1.  I approached this road trip (destination Lewisburg, WV) with a great deal of fear.  I dreaded being in a confined space with the girls, so little as they are now, for the twenty hours it would take us to get there.  I dreaded it so much that my mind blocked out the fact that there would be twenty MORE hours to get us back home again, and I didn’t even register the inevitability of the return trip until someone innocently asked what day we would be arriving back in the Twin Cities.

Packed and ready to leave

But, we’ve made it to WV, and we’ve done remarkably well, though the trip hasn’t been without some excitement.  Ellen has a bad habit, at home and on the road, of announcing that she has to go potty, then saying that she’s changed her mind once she’s actually in the bathroom.  She’ll even sit on the toilet for minutes at a time and say “well, nothing’s coming out,” then return to her playing until two minutes later she’s announcing her need again.  It’s a cycle that can continue for twenty minutes or more, and which usually culminates in her bladder making up her mind for her, and her next announcement being “I’m having an accident!” 

This habit got us into trouble on the interstate yesterday.  As we drove through POURING rain, Ellen said, “I have to go potty!”  “Okay,” we said, “we’ll stop at the next place.  Hold on, hold on!”  We kept going, and again heard from the backseat, “I have to go potty REALLY BADLY!”  “Okay, only one mile to the rest stop!” Dave said.  “Do your little potty dance!  Wiggle your legs if you have to!”  We made it through that eternal minute, and finally saw our exit.  We pulled off the road, saying, “We made it!” and were stopped by a giant orange sign: “REST STOP CLOSED.” 

So, pouring rain, closed rest stop, and preschooler doing a potty wiggle in the car.  There was nothing for it but to open the trunk, take out the travel potty, set it down on the road, and kneel down with the umbrella over her. 

So here they are, a doting daddy doing the literal “anything” for his daughter, a mom behind the camera recording the moment and trying to shield the lens from the nearly horizontal rain, and a daughter…NOT going potty.  “You have to go, Ellen,” says Dave.  “Once we get back in the car, we’ll just have to stop again.  You’re on the potty right now, so GO.”  Nothin’ doin’.  A minute later, Dave and Ellen were both back in the car strapped in, soaking wet, and bladder still full.

Remarkably, she made it with no accidents to the next rest stop, at which I accompanied her to the ladies’ room and held her on the big potty to try again.  “Hmm, nothing’s coming out,” she said again.  “Oh no no,” I replied, “you have to go.  Let’s sing a little song to distract you.  Which one should we do?”  Our bathroom stall neighbor was serenaded with Ellen’s pick of “ABC’s” and then a new one, which I made up on the spot, and which has since yesterday been a potty-time favorite.  You can probably guess the tune.

                                                Tinkle, tinkle, little one

                                                Going pee is so much fun!

                                                Sitting on the potty now,

                                                You can do it, you know how!

                                                Tinkle, tinkle, little one

                                                Going pee is so much fun!     

It works like a charm.