I Brought It on Myself

I may have said--out loud--at my parents' house how surprised I was that none of the assorted small and large people present in the house were sick while we were there.

With four kids and six adults, all of whom were sleep-deprived, exposed to airport germs, and generally in prime illness-prone condition, this was something of a miracle.

Of course, I said this a few days before we came home. Which means--dun dun DUN--I spoke too soon.

A. was on his way with Cubby on Wednesday for a much-anticipated camping trip to the Chiracahua Mountains when Cubby threw up all over himself in the car. He later threw up all over me that afternoon (and maybe a little on my mother's living room; hooray for family visits!).

He was fine the next day.

The day after that--which was yesterday--we departed Tucson for home. And everything I have ever said about Cubby being an amazing traveler was thrown back in my face. With interest.

He had fits in airports--on the floor, on the moving walkways, in the bathrooms. He refused to sit on the toilets in the airports or on the planes, which meant he was, uh, stopped up all day. He finally took a nap on our last short flight of the day, waking up 20 minutes before we landed and LOSING HIS DAMN MIND.

When he's still tired upon waking, he does what I call a demon wake-up. Because he sounds like a demon from hell. He screams and sobs and shrieks and absolutely cannot be calmed. Nothing will stop it. NOTHING. And believe me, I have tried everything. It just has to be waited out.

It's bad enough when he does it at home. In an airplane, it's another level of awful.

A. had to bodily remove him from the plane. He screamed and fought the whole way off the plane. He collapsed in a writhing puddle of misery on the floor at baggage claim, where I was left with both crying children and a full baggage cart, waiting forever for Charlie's car seat to arrive while A. went into the single-digit temperatures to get the car.

Not that I can blame Cubby. Three days of nationwide bad weather resulted in a lot of chaos and delays at airports. We were lucky we were only delayed a few hours getting home.

Charlie was fine traveling, but he hasn't been sleeping for shit and last night (and this morning) was no exception.

So. Remind me please that next time I want to get all smug about good health and easy cross-country traveling, I should just shut my damn mouth.

All Rung In

Happy New Year, my lovelies! Did you have a glittery, glamorous New Year's Eve celebration? Yeah, me too. I finished an Agatha Christie novel that I've read probably a dozen times already and went to bed at 9 a.m. on an inflatable mattress.

It's a really nice inflatable mattress, though, and I slept very well until 4:15 a.m., when Charlie started weeping piteously. I rescued him and, since I couldn't face the thought of actually getting up yet, let him just lie there in the inflatable bed with me.

He thought it was quite comfortable, too.

My real New Year's Eve celebration was going to Bookmans earlier in the day. I have mentioned my love of Bookmans before, and it's pretty much the only thing I really wanted to do in Tucson. It became clear a couple of days ago that I wasn't going to be going anywhere without Charlie, however, so A. and I left Cubby in the charge of his super-indulgent grandparents and took Charlie with us to buy some used books.

So now I've got five new books with which to start the year. Bring on 2014. I'm ready.