Scene from The Manager household earlier today:
4:00 A.M. The Boy enters our bedroom, fully dressed and teeth brushed, wearing backpack full of toys and clutching Transformers action figure in each fist. Announces loudly that he’s ready to leave for vacation.
4:01 Manager Dad leads him back into his room and stuffs him back into bed, still fully clothed.
6:00 Alarm goes off. MD goes downstairs and circles mountain of luggage like a wary lion trying to fell a water buffalo. Begins loading car while Spawn toss random last-minute must-bring items onto the pile.
6:22 Head to Dunkin Donuts to procure trip rations.Finish first 24oz coffee in under 2 minutes; return to Dunkin Donuts for seconds.
6:40 Car packed; last-minute walkthrough of the house sparks meltdown when The Boy spots the Wii and is told that it's not coming with us.
7:00 Family in car, ready to depart.
7:01 The Girl requests a bathroom stop.
7:05 Leave driveway.
7:06 The Boy requests a bathroom stop. Return to house.
7:09 Leave driveway for the second time.
7:13 Get within twenty feet of the parkway on-ramp. Crisis erupts as The Girl discovers that her bagel has the wrong flavor cream cheese. Manager Dad turns the car around and heads back to Dunkin Donuts for bagel exchange.
7:22 Finally get on the parkway. Despite the bagel swap, The Girl decides that cream cheese "tastes funny". Boy refuses to eat his own bagel in a show of solidarity. Pass out granola bars and Smartfood.
7:26 Snack stash completely decimated. Spawn still hungry. Pass out gum and Tic Tacs.
7:27 First "Are we there yet?" Source child unknown.
7:29 The Boy requests another bathroom stop. No exits for twenty miles. MD pulls car over to shoulder and takes him on a nature hike.
7:31 Fight breaks out over which movie to put on the DVD player. "Alvin and the Chipmunks" beats "Underdog". Somewhere in Hollywood, Jason Lee cashes a fat royalty check while wearing an evil grin.
7:35 Sound of chipmunk singing causes me to repeatedly stab myself in the ears with plastic bagel knife.
7:36 Loud sobbing is heard; realize it's coming from me.
Only five more hours until we reach our destination.
Family vacation time. To improve the entertainment value of any other posts I might wring from my remaining brain cells, please Fedex survival kits containing sunscreen, booze, and National Enquirers to my attention, care of Pondsea House, Peaks Island, Maine.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Big Ben! Parliament!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
71 comments:
I'm glad to see you did not Photoshop your head onto Rusty's body. Progress on your obsession with your flat-chestiness!
We are on our way home from a long road trip with our only child. If I had three, well, I'm sorry. There is not enough of my friend, Jose Cuervo, in the world for that scenario.
Have a great vacation!!! Five hours in an air conditioned car even with kids actually sounds pretty good right now.
I'll pray for you.
Have fun!
My Boy and I leave on a road trip soon. There will be no Alvin on the DVD without headphones. There are some advantages to keeping the number of spawn to one. :)
Dear God................. !!!
I'll be praying for you.
And laughing. Enjoy!
Can't wait to hear all about it.
No, I will NOT mail those things to you, because after checking out that house? I'm delivering everything in person. (What a great place to stay!)
But there may be less alcohol than you were expecting. On the upside, I will be in a slightly better mood.
Have a great time!
Ya know why I love you? Because everytime I get to a roundabout, I start saying "Look kids...Big Ben..Parliament!"
No one gets me like you.
Happy trails!
I loved this imagery:
"MD goes downstairs and circles mountain of luggage like a wary lion trying to fell a water buffalo."
Come on, lion, I know you haven't gotten much sleep, but you're the king of the jungle and it's a sloppy water buffalo.
Give us a war cry and go for the jugular!
Well written Manager Mom.
p.s. I hear you on the children's movies that make you want to cut your own ears off. Thank God my kids don't know about the Chipmunks because just *thinking* about driving in a minivan and listening to them makes my blood boil.
Four bedrooms and a loft? Do I hear vacation sex??
Let us all pause for a moment, bow our heads, and think about what this trip would be like WITHOUT the in-vehicle DVD player.
I'm serious, I don't know how my parents did the 12 hour car rides to Northern Quebec with nothing more than an AM radio without killing me or my sister.
i know this makes me a bad person/mommy -- but i really hate vacation.
have a wonderful trip! Ever wonder why they don't make regular cars with those plastic privacy windows like in taxis and limos (well, limos in the movies at least...) I would think that would be a huge seller, for just these occasions.
Trip Plans for 2009:
Pack lots of booze
Send Spawn to parent's house
Leave hubbie with a 12-pack and the remote
Fly to MN
Party with the CC posse in the TC!
I'm just saying.
Ah yes, nothing like having your children sing "Christmas, Christmas time is here" in Chipmunk voices in the middle of summer. Over and over again.
You went back to the Dunkin Donuts? Now that's a cool mom.
5 hours in a car with 2 kids and you survived to tell the tale? Awesome.
This year's trip will be our first summer vacation that does not include flight delays, security lines, and a mouse at the end of our journey. Instead, we have a 4 hour road trip to go spend a week at the Cape together. In a house. No room service, no thrill rides. Just 24/7 togetherness.
Stay tuned ...
My GAWD, you're brave. By the time you get there, you'll realize why I think there should be seats ON TOP of the car.
OMG, I am going crazy just reading that. It's nice having only one kid that can talk. Once they both can, I'm totally screwed. I look to your blog as proof of this. ;)
Have a great trip!
Hey, I took this same trip!
Why have you pasted your mug over the daughter? Is this your way of saying, given your druthers, you choose not to be the mommy while you traipse across the land in search of Wally World?
Now is that a custom cruiser or a country squire? We make our 14hour drive to the beach in a few weeks. I am nowhere near as accommodating as you, but Target has lots of wine in cute little plastic bottles so maybe this year will be different. Be safe!
Family vacations are best taken when the children are grown up and can buy their own drinks.
This is just one mother's opinion.
HAHA Oh sorry! I don't envy you at all. LOL Good luck and remember that we're thinking of you. LOL
Well good luck to you!
Hillarious! I hope you have a great time with the fam!
I'm one of those idiots who don't allow t.v. in the car on road trips. I feel like we should "bond." Hey, I made it through road trips in the 70's with no t.v. The pain is part of the pleasure!
Great vacation destinatin!
That would be destination.
Oh my word. What a vacation this is turning out to be. Can't wait to read more.
'Bad Day' is my son's favorite song, worse is that he totally sings all the lyrics wrong, it's cute and yet, so annoying.
Good luck on keeping the sanity!
Traveling with children is so much fun! Just remember, you still have to come back with them :)
This post just made me realize that you are SOOO much nicer than me. I'd be like, no more toys, it's the bagel or nothing and hold your pee! Like, totally.
It could be worse, our Spring Break road trip was 20 hours, ONE WAY, in the car. Sadly enough it was just like this post the WHOLE way there and back. Oh and in case you were entertaining the idea of ipods for your kids, so you don't have to listen to Hannah OMG I want to kill myself now Montana for hours on end. Hannah is better than just hearing my kid mumble the lyrics off tune to a song I can not hear. Just sayin.
Now go, have fun!
Our last family vacation ... four children, seven months pregnant, 26 hours in the car ... with only pee stops!!! It was fun!
Suddenly happy that we probably don't have any vacation time coming this year to my husband. He started his electrician's apprenticeship this summer and its like this...
you don't go to work... you don't get paid.
So our vacation has two costs associated with it... the cost of the vacation and the cost of lost wages. Makes even the cheapest vacation expensive.
I do hope that we can go home to my parents for Christmas tho. I haven't been home in two years. Doesn't 11 hours in a car with a 6 and 3 year old and two adults that don't like to drive sound exciting?
OK - this is hilarious. Nothing like a handful of Tic-Tacs to keep them quiet..for like two minutes.
Thanks for your comment on my blog - it cracked me up. I hope you'll visit again! :)
Sounds like fun. We'll be doing the same in the next month! (vacation that is...not same destination)
The only way I survive the road trips is just turning up the music and tuning everything else out! Have a great time!!
We did this, and my heart goes out to you! Our eldest brought with her one entire suitcase of cosmetics. Some of the items even had the lids screwed on.
Did you REALLY go back for seconds at Dunkins? Because THAT? IS AWESOME.
Big Ben, Parliament. Hilarious.
Color me silly, but I guessing you're probably going to get miles and miles of blogging stuff from this vacation. Just remember that...when something happens that makes your head want to explode...take out a memo pad and take notes for blogging later!!! Your readers will appreciate it!!
Have fun!
(are we there yet?)
At least you didn't strap one of the kids to the outside of the car.
Ha! Good luck to you! Have a great vacation.
Funny! My favorite vacation is just staying home because the kids always have so much crap that has to come along. Just. stay. home.
I feel for you. We drive 8 hours to CA every year. And DH won't let the kids have a DVD player. He claims that when he was a kid he had to look out the windows to be entertained! Unfortunately, he tunes them out while driving and I'm left refereeing!
Ooo, good luck there.
Watch out for those urine-soaked sandwiches.
I have come to the conclusion that "vacations" are just another challenge in the survivor game of motherhood.
We are going away this weekend for two weeks and already I'm thinking, I don't care about immunity- just let me off this show so I can check into a Westin, alone, to eat room service, wear a fluffy white robe and not leave bed for a few weeks. Is that too much to ask?
The fact that he was ready so early? While tiring for you... Highly amusing for us!
Hope the trip was great.
The fact that he was ready so early? While tiring for you... Highly amusing for us!
Hope the trip was great.
This is why The Good Lord invented duct tape. (Tip: Dip it in chloroform first.)
Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like a young Chevy Chase?
Ohhhh have fun!
You and MD have way too much patience. I would have been sobbing from the minute I woke up!
Enjoy your trip!
This year's was the first road trip where I remembered headphones for the DVD player. Back to back showings of High School Musical and High School Musical 2 ain't how I roll!
Hope you're having a fantastic time!
Uh, is there any- I mean any- possibility that you were in my car during our drive to our family vacation destination? I counted at least 5 times where I had to yell, "Well, I'm not putting ANYTHING on the DVD player until you two can agree on something! You can sit in silence for all I care!"
I am in awe of your photoshopping skills.
Note to self... pack lots of plastic knives for the next road trip.
Have a great vacay!
Precisely why we don't drive any where for vacation. You are a great mom to do that. Have fun!!
Good times!
Good good times!
Someone please tell me - do they ever stop fighting in the car? first it was which cassette tape in the radio, then which DVD on the screen, now it's over 'shotgun" (being a single parent now) and who controls the iPOD hooked to the stereo. I have discovered taking them only 1 at a time solves most arguments. Most. But not all. How is that possible??!!!
Hope you have a great vacation. No fighting in the car joys for me quite yet, my 6 year old is a blessing. However, my 5 month old screams like a screech owl every time the car happens to stop- red lights, stop signs, he's not picky. The thought of chancing a traffic jam on an actual road trip has me cowering like a little girl.
That sounds a lot like our car rides, except its my hubby that needs the incessant potty breaks and snack stops. Not to mention blasting me with the same annoying Smashing Pumpkins song on infinite repeat. And of course, besides our son's "Are we there yets?", we get the howling hound chorus from the back of the car.
Again---when are they going to come up with glass partitions for cars other than limos?
but the real question is...did anyone get strapped to the roof in a rocking chair?
I will forever compare family trips with my 26+ hour odyssey home from BlogHer with my 10 week old, thing of it is, she did vastly better than the adults I encountered.
A vacation! Do not fear. Following the ride, there surely will be booze enough to numb the pain - and outdoors to engage the spawn. Beware of the damn white russians - remember what happened on my vacation? Seriously, step away. Just use pills instead. Cannot wait to hear how it goes...
Oh, how I love the Lampoons!
Hope you're having fun on your vacation. We regularly have 4 hour car trips since by husband is currently stationed that far away - and for the most part the kids have done pretty good.
The Matron just endured a similar start to a five hour car ride herself! Only the nature hike is harder with the girl-child. Have fun and stay out of that poison ivy!
We planned on leaving at 6AM for our vacation and didn't end up leaving until 8:30AM. We usually don't get on the road until 10AM, but instead of getting to our destination earlier, it actually took us longer because of increased traffic!!!
Thanks for the visit.
Hysterical! I'm still cracking up!
Thanks for stopping by my blog the other day!
wow! the effort spend to write down each time...hmmm...you cheated right? *laugh*
I'm having a nervous breakdown on your behalf; I'll send my therapy bill.
If only the actual Jason Lee could just accompany you on the trip. That might help soothe things a bit.
Post a Comment