Happy new year, everyone! We are slowly, slowly recovering from the holiday debauchery. Most of us are over our various illnesses. Holiday decorations are now making their way back into their storage areas. Piece-by-piece, we’re finding homes for all the kids’ new toys, puzzles, and books. I’m working on restocking the fridge with fruits and veggies so we can have nutritious choices at mealtime. Insurance should be covering the damage to the rental car. Wait, what?

Ornament? What ornament?

Our holidays were going pretty well before we started driving. We managed to get the kids down to Mozart’s to have some hot chocolate and see their fantastic light show. If you’re in Austin and looking to take the kiddos out for a low-stress outing, this is a good one. The Trail of Lights is an institution, but with a 1 year old and a 3 year old, we just weren’t up for it this year.

Deep thoughts during the holidays

We decided to take the kids to see Santa. Maya missed out last year (hospital, NICU, bleh), and we wanted to get some cute photos. We visited him at the Bass Pro Shop of all places. Not that we have a ton of comparative experience, but their setup seemed pretty nice. We spent maybe 30-45 minutes in line. Mostly I stood there while Sean ferried the kids about the store to keep them occupied, so it wasn’t so bad. The place is crazy huge. There are RC cars and trucks to play with, a little train set to watch, fish tanks to examine, a bowling alley. Not to mention the restaurant. The folks working there were all friendly and genuinely tried to get good, happy photos with the kids.

We had worked with Maya a little bit before going, explaining that you told Santa the things you might want for Christmas. She did a great job. She willingly sat on his lap, played with his beard a little bit … and calmly asked him for an octopus … please. I’m not sure Santa knew quite what to make of that, but it made her happy. Ian was kind of tired, so he mostly just sat there.

Santa!!!

We wedged in a first birthday celebration for Ian on the 19th (more on that later hopefully) and then packed on the 20th for the drive up to Dallas to spend the holidays with Sean’s side of the family and then later to Missouri to see mine. Luckily Lolli and Pop were at the house and could watch the kids while we loaded up the car, otherwise we might never have left!

Other than some scheduling issues with the kids, the Dallas part of the trip was reasonably uneventful. The cousins played together, everyone opened gifts, Maya had fun sleeping in the big hotel bed and riding around in the minivan.

Toward the end of our stay, we had learned that my dad was sick and we were dithering over whether or not to drive to Missouri, but we decided to go for it. The morning we were to start our long drive, we went into Maya’s part of our hotel room to get her going for the day and found that the poor girl was coated in vomit. She explained to us that she had to turn her pillow over (to the non-vomit side, so she could finish sleeping). That kid is awesome. Every once in a while, Maya overindulges in some kind of food, and we thought maybe that’s what had happened this time.

The only way we could get her to smile was to feed her candy cane

After an extra shower and devising storage solutions for now-stinky items, we got a late start out of town. Around lunch time, we were disabused of the notion that the barfing was an overindulgence issue. Maya, ever the trooper, had (mostly) vomited in her little barf bucket (thanks Aunt Darci!) and was ready to go into the restaurant we had stopped at. Except surprise! She barfed in the restaurant too, all over the floor. We were definitely their favorite customers that day.

She threw up one more time during our car trip, and told us several times that we were never going to make it to Missouri. Neither of the kids had been on a car trip quite that long before.

Once in Missouri, her stomach seemed to settle pretty well. She was playing with her grandparents and cousins, nibbling at food, and having a good time, so we thought it was probably just a little 24-hour thing. WRONG AGAIN! For our return journey, Our plan had been to drive to Dallas on Sunday and then to Austin on Monday. Saturday evening, just as the family holiday festivities were winding down, Maya threw up what seemed like most of her food for the evening. Then around 1a on Sunday morning (the morning we were to leave for Dallas), poor Maya woke up vomiting again. It was awful. That’s how she spent her next hour. And of course, Ian woke up too. Maya was freaking out about making a mess of her “wittle bitty be-ed,” and Ian was screaming for all he was worth. We finally got everyone sort of simmered down around 3a, and made the decision to drive all the way to Austin right away on Sunday so we could take Maya to see our regular doctor on Monday.

Ordinarily, that drive takes about 12 hours. With our various stops and slow-downs it took 14. With the kids, that’s actually not a terrible mark-up, but that trip can only be described as terrible. Maya managed to keep some gatorade, cheerios, and crackers down throughout the car trip. We even got brave at dinner time and let her have a few of her beloved french fries. Ian was sick, sick, sick of that car seat by the time we even started the drive. He only had two real modes for that journey: angry or asleep.

The real trouble was the weather. It rained pretty much for the entire 14 hours. Seeing how parts of Missouri look right now with the catastrophic flooding, I realize we got off light. The rain wasn’t even so bad for a while. Our fortunes turned around Prescott, Arkansas. We received EAS alerts on our phones for a tornado warning in the area while we were parked at a gas station. After doing a bit of examining radar and seeing the condition of this particular gas station, we decided to carry on. Not long after that, the hail started. Growing up in the midwest and living in Texas, I’ve seen plenty of hail, but nothing like this. When I say it looked at least baseball sized, I’m not exaggerating. There was no gentle lead-up; there were only intermittent giant thunks on the roof of our rental car, causing the adults to instinctively duck and Maya to laugh (who knows – I was just glad she wasn’t scared). We found an overpass to hide under as quickly as we could, but the damage was done: a couple of good-sized dents in our front hood and one broken windshield. The hailstone actually hit at the junction of the car’s body and the windshield and dented both of them substantially. It was scary, I’m not too proud to say.

The adults in the car were visibly rattled as we continued on our drive, the rest of which was marred by near zero-visibility torrents of rain and occasional weather-induced traffic slow-downs. Because things were so crummy, Sean actually never let me have a turn driving. He drove the entire 14-hour trip. Needless to say, his nerves were frayed and his brain was putty by the time we got home around 11 o’clock that night.

Ian, who had slept for most of the trip only wanted to play when we got to the house. Maya, who had kept her food down all day, requested water. Without even thinking about it, I gave her a glass full of water. She proceeded to chug said water and then vomited enormously all over the hall by her room, and the bathroom too, of course. It was well past 1a before everyone was cleaned up and settled in for a short night’s sleep.

Despite all of that, it was really great to see our families for the holidays. Despite illnesses and holiday-related chaos, spirits were generally high. Everyone was unspeakably generous; we’ll need to add a room for all the kids’ toys and things. Maya and Ian enjoyed seeing everyone, especially their grandparents. We made it home in one dented piece.