Take a sick baby to a hotel? Yes, that's a GREAT IDEA.

One of the perks of running a blog is you can take two days to tell a story about your children getting sick at the precise time you are supposed to be leaving for your beach vacation. I'm fully enjoying that perk right now as I conlcude the exciting story of . . . Coxsackie Family Vacation!!!!

Terza's high fever broke after twenty-four hours. We decided that we should wait another night just to be safe and also because staying in a hotel and driving ten hours would probably not be terribly fun with a still-sick-though-no-longer-feverish child. We decided we'd spend the night at home and then get an early start in the morning.

And then, after listening to the baby scream for thirty minutes on the couch, we changed our minds. We decided to get the hell out of Dodge.

Terza was clearly going to be miserable for at 2 to 3 days. Her throat was covered in ulcers and after having a 103 degree fever, she felt like shit in general. All she was going to do was watch Caillou and Clifford and Daniel Tiger for 72 hours, with brief breaks only to sleep restlessly. By the time she felt fully better, our vacation would be over. And we'd have spent it in our tiny, messy apartment, listening to her howls.

I explain this part so you understand why we thought it was a good idea to take the kid, with two other kids, in the car and go to North Carolina. It was obviously an idiotic idea. But the alternative was pretty heinous, too.

We figured that since her mouth ulcers had appeared, her diagnosis was confirmed. There was nothing you could do about Coxsackie and once the fever had broke, it wasn't dangerous really, just a pain in the ass. We were going to be miserable either way - it was only a question of whether we'd be miserable on our way to a beach or whether we'd be miserable at home. The beach called.

So, at about 5pm, in a snap decision, we grabbed all our stuff, which was packed and waiting, and got in the car, bound for DC, where we'd spend the night, en route to North Carolina. It being a Saturday, we enoucntered no traffic, which was one huge, glorious mercy. Because had we encountered traffic, I think one if not all of us would have jettisoned ourselves from the vehicle.

As soon as we secured the baby in the car seat, she started howling. Poor thing, who could blame her? I mentioned before, there is regrettably no such thing as Pediatric Percoset Mouthwash, so she was stuck with Motrin for pain relief. If she'd known about morphine, I'm pretty sure she would have asked for it.

We did the unthinkable and gave her the paci. That, along with endless cartoons on the iPad, bought us about 15-20 minutes at a time of Non-Screaming. This was useful because the other children needed a chance to vent their problems where were, as always, plentiful. But eventually Terza had to swallow her saliva and when she did, she bellowed. Which, not to put too fine a point on it, probably didn't help her throat any.

Every so often, I turned around in the front seat and tried to give her a sip of water or juice or milk and every time, she batted it away, snarling and angry, like I was trying to kill her. Frequently, this sent liquids flying all over the car. Oftentimes, it caused David to yell at me to stop forcing drinks on her. Always, I yelled back at him that if the baby did not drink anything, she'd surely get dehydrated and then we'd be forced to bring her to the hospital. Which prompted me to investigate what medical facility we should bring her to in the DC/ Maryland area, should push come to shove.

I think that when you start lining up hospitals for possible dehydration, you can probably admit that you're not having a great vacation.

At about 9pm, we got to the hotel and there, David redeemed himself with a genius idea. He thought to offer the baby water from the sygrine we used to administer her Motrin. Shockingly, this worked and I was able to squirt a sufficient amount of ccs into her parched body.  She went to bed really late and the big kids didn't fall asleep until even later. David and I enjoyed our usual Bathroom Date Night -- we retired to the only room not filled with sleeping children, to stream Netflix on my iPhone. And about midnight, I decided to turn in. At that EXACT moment, the baby woke up. It couldn't have been my footsteps since a ninja could not have treaded more softly. It was just rotten luck.

She woke up and started crying and didn't stop for about three hours. There were lulls, to be sure -- periods of time where her crying subsided to a whine, and then even a soft sniffle, like it was near extinguishing, but then it would renew itself and grow in strength until it was a full-fledged sob.
It was not the most pleasant way to spend the hours between midnight and 3am. Esecialluy in a room was paying over a hundred bucks for the pleasure of "sleeping"in.

I turned on all the lights.

I turned them all off.

I played her Caillou and Clifford and Daniel Tiger.

I told her stories and sang songs and tried to pick her up and took her in bed with me and nothing worked at all.

Finally, I realized that she was bothered by the throat pain, sure, but she was also terrified. It occurred to me that she probably had no earthly idea what a "hotel" was or what we were doing in a totally unfamiliar space. She kept looking around with wide eyes and scurrying away from my arms, into the far corners of the room.  She was wildly disoriented. And the piercing throat pain didn't help, either.

So I tried my hand at toddler whispering and basically narrated what had happened that day in excruciating detail, like I was trying to convince her with a barrage of details that I was her real mother instead of some impostor. Then I described what was going to happen in the morning. She still wouldn't let me pick her up but at least her crying slowed to a soft moan. Then I lured her in with photos on my cell phone and eventually, she let me scoop her up and bring her into bed with me where we scrolled through pictures of things we'd done and places we'd been for another hour until finally she was quiet and I could drift off to sleep too . . . for about two hours, at which point she'd decided enough was enough and it was time for Round 2.

David and I had the foresight to bring an air mattress which we put in the "living room" where the kids were sleeping on a fold-out couch. Normally, I'd have fought David tooth and nail for that air mattress but seeing as he'd be driving us five to nine hours the next day, I figured he needed the sleep.

In other words, I was a Christian martyr. It was not fun. I do not recommend it.

Eventually, we arrived at our destination and eventually, the baby cheered up and we all had a pretty wonderful time near the stunning Atlantic ocean.  We were glad we'd powerhouses through.

But next year, come vacation time, I'm putting everyone in surgical masks and gloves. We're battening down the germ hatches. One Coxsackie Family Vacation makes for a diverting story band blog post, Two? That's just wrong.

The Coxsackie Family Vacation!

Four.

That's the number of times I've had to cancel a trip because a child fell ill the day we were supposed to depart. We don't take a lot of trips, so this is a pretty high percentage of total trips ventured. The most memorable of these trip cancellations was when Primo got appendicitis the night David and I were supposed to leave for Iceland. The car service came to take us to the airport but instead we had it take us to the ER where my son got an organ removed. Fun times.

Of course, all's well that ends well. And the most distressing thing about that cancelled trip was that, had my son grown sick just a few hours later, we'd have been in Iceland when he was taken to the hospital. Thinking about him in pain and me far away, waiting for hours for a flight to take me back to him, fills me with tremendous dread. It's enough to make me never plan a vacation again.

But that's no way to live! So we plan. And we inevitably cancel, too. Because, guess what? Kids get sick all the damn time and very inopportunely, I might add.

Two Fridays ago, we were all set to drive down to North Carolinw for our annual family vacation. We meet David's parents and his sister, with her all kids, and grandmothers and family friends and it's a rollicking good time. Sand and surf and sweet tea. We look forward to it all year. The vacation can never come quick enough.

We were all packed. Swim diapers and thermometers and reading material and sunblock and snorkel masks and everything you could possibly need was organized into suitcases and the suitcases were zipped up. Sandwiches were made for the ride down and wrapped in tin foil. Reservations had been confirmed at the hotel in DC where we stay to make the trip a bearable two-day one, instead of an intolerable blur of misery that is concluded in one day.

We were all set. All we had to do was attend the kids' culminating performance at theater camp at 1pm and from there, we'd stick the kids right into the already-packed car and zoom off. But about a half hour before we had to leave to see the performance Terza did something profoundly disturbing.

She fell asleep.

Whenever my kids fall asleep without a fight, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are sick. It happened when Primo had appendictisu and it was the deciding factor for us to take him to the ER.

"He doesn't have fever or vomiting or the other symptoms," I told David. "But he says his stomach hurts. AND HE JUST FELL ASLEEP. At 7pm. Without a struggle."

"Shit," David concurred, "You're right."

So when I looked over and found Terza lying in the middle of the living room carpet, on her stomach, dozing off, I knew. I knew the trip was a goner. I shot David a panicked look and then he knew too.

But we deluded ourselves because sometimes life requires a little delusion.

"It's not THAT weird," I reasoned. "I mean, it's nap time and so she fell asleep. Kids DO that. I've heard they do that."

David nodded. But he didn't looked convinced. Sure, kids do that. Just not our kids.

A half hour later, after slinging the diaper bag over my shoulder and slipping my sunglasses on the top of my head, fully ready to go to the kids' show and then after that, DC, I picked the baby up from where she'd been sleeping on the living room floor. And of course she was blazing hot.

Now, I don't usually call the doctor immediately after the kids first spike a fever because I know they are going to tell me to wait until they've had the fever for three days or until other complications arise. But in this instance, I needed a prognosis, in order to ascertain if we'd be able to leave for NC soon. So I brought Terza into the doctor who took one look at her throat and made an educated guess that I did not want to hear.

"Looks like Coxsackie," she said/ "Everyone has it. It's going around big-time."

I pumped her for details and as soon as I heard them, I regretted it. High fever for up to 3 days? Ulcers all down the throat making eating and drinking very difficult? Blisters forming afterwards on the hand, feet, mouth and BUTT? Oh, and yes, highly contagious.

"But she might NOT have that, right?" I clarified.

"Sure, she might not," the doctor replied. "But she probably does."

Terza is a very charming feverish baby. She gets positively luminescent. She is super chatty, not unlike someone on coke. She talks about a mile a minute and runs to and fro, until suddenly, she'll crash and then she lies on the couch, eyes all glassy, and says stuff like "I love you my darling." And you just want to beat the germs senseless and send them packing. So she did that and we consoled the kids who were positively miserable that our trip was on indefinite hold. You can say, "Think about your poor sister for God's sake!" but, come on, they're kids.

So we watched TV and ate ice cream with chocolate syrup and waited-and-seed. The inevitably of waiting-and-seeing is the number one reason I will never be a doctor. There are many other reasons, but that's top of the list.

And just about twenty four hours after she'd fallen asleep on the floor with a fever, her fever broke. Mercifully. We would have definitely luxuriated in relief had that not been the exact moment that the mouth ulcers began to bother her. Did I say "bother?" Hmmmmn. There must be a more exact word I can use to communicate the effect of the sores on my daughter. "Tormented" gets a bit closer.

Because while Terza is a dreamboat Fever Baby, she is a nightmare Mouth Ulcer Baby. Not that I blame the poor kid. If there was some kind of morphine mouthwash I could safely use on her, I'd have used it. Interestingly, the pharmacy doesn't have Pediatric Percoset Mouthwash over the counter. So we were forced to go it the Old-School-Suffering route.

And, we figured, since we were all already suffering at home, why not take the show on the road? With her fever completely gone, and a diagnosis fully confirmed, we decided to take Coxsackie Baby on a ten hour drive to the beach!


 . . . . Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion of the Coxsackie Family Vacation.

First day of school! Pop the champagne! We made it!

I love summer, really I do, but I have been hanging on to my sanity by the skin of my TEETH, waiting with what I'd call a saint-like patience for the first day of school. You know how you feel when you're 40 weeks pregnant and you are convinced that you will never, ever go into labor? You know, realistically, that there has never, not even once, been a case of a baby staying forever in the womb, just chillin' in there, taking his first steps in your uterus and leaning how to talk while attached to his umbilical cord, yet despite knowing this, you are certain that precisely this sceanrio will ensue. Your pregnancy will be permanent.

This is how I've felt the past two or so weeks. Right about the time camp ended. I understood on a logical level that public school would start at some point. I even knew the date. Still I harbored an irrational fear that the department of Ed would be disbanded or fall would refuse to come like in some ancient Greek myth and I would be stuck in summer break purgatory.

The extra week off really put me over the edge. It might not seem like much - five measly days - but those days have stretched, each one comprising roughly 50 hours rather than 24. With camp a distant memory and child care an impossible dream, I settled on working for a measly hour or two a day, during which time my poor, martyr grandmother watched the kids. By "watched" what I mean is,  housed them on her couch while they watched TV on demand and the baby napped. Consequently, thanks to near-toxic levels of screen time, the kids' brains are at 10% capacity. Good luck getting back into the rigors of school work, guys.

But, now, finally, the first day of school is upon us. Backpacks have been labeled, forms have been signed, supplies have been purchased, new outfits have been laid out. There's hope that the damage to my personality and mental hygiene can be reversed, that I may become a sane and friendly human being again, within a few days. One can only hope.

Date Night in the Bathroom

Remember when staying overnight in a hotel meant spending a half hour in the shower trying out all the free products, lying in bed watching crappy cable for hours at night, interrupted by vacation sex, followed by deep sleeping, which went on and on and on, past 9am, past 10, sometimes past 11, at which point you'd have to fling your belongings into your suitcase and hustle down to reception to sweet talk the guy behind the counter into not charging you for late checkout?

That time is no more. It ended the day I had my first baby, much less my third. Now, even on the rare occasions when David and I sneak away for an overnight stay somewhere, neither of us can sleep past 8am.  We are biologically wired to wake, adrenaline coursing,  aeound 7:30am, to pour cereal and shove breasts into baby's mouths and pack lunches.

When we stay in hotels with the kids in tow -- once a year, on our way down to North Carolina -- not only don't we get to sleep late, we don't get to lie in bed watching crappy cable. That's because even though we only ever stay at hotels that offer two-room suites - where the living room and its fold out couch is separated from the bedroom with a door -- now that we have three kids, we don't get a room to ourselves. Baby is always on board. Baby could be tossed into the madhouse living room with her big brother and sister but those kids don't go to bed til the stroke of 10  - minimum  - and I can't cope with the possibility that they'd keep the baby up til then. I'd rather have a sleeping baby hogging my bedroom, essentially barring me from entry, than an awake baby screaming her head off, while I retain full use of the bedchamber. That's because I know full well that as long as the baby's awake I don't retain full use of anything; I can't enjoy the bedroom anyway with her clinging to me collar like a monkey and caterwauling in my ear. So we give the baby the bedroom, and we give the kids the living room and David and I are left . . .

With the the bathroom.

The thing is, by the time the kids finally succumb to sleep, we are so fucking relieved to be Off Duty for a brief spell that we don't give a shit that we're stuck in the bathroom.

i sit on the closed lid of the toilet and David perches on the edge of the tub. Occasionally, the bathroom is big enough for us to drag a chair in from the living room. In this incredibly glamorous set-up, we do exciting and sexy things like eat leftover cold cuts, and watch Scandal on my laptop.We could have sex in the shower, I suppose, but seeing as these hotel stays always follows a 6-10 hour car ride with three children, that is the last thing either of us want to do. OK, not either of us. I think David could drive a school bus full of kids for 72 hours straight  and still want to have sex upon exiting the vehicle. Still, the vacation sex of our pre-baby-days is out. So, we kvetch and snack and consume media, crowded in the bathroom. And we relish every minute of it because it sure beats sitting in the car with the kids bellowing three different songs simultaneously and beating the crap out of each other of out sheer boredom.

Yet another way the deprivation of leisure exacted by parenthood improves you as a person, making you grateful for the things you used to take for granted.

Road Trip

Sorry for the radio silence but I've been tied up the past week "vacationing." Maybe its really obnoxious of me to use the word "vacation" with quotation marks because after all, I did just spend a week in the stupendous Outer Banks, lounging in the pool and sitting seaside while the kids hunted for clams and made malted sand balls. We saw wild horses and admired the moon path on the ocean and got sand in our butts and salt water in our mouths. That part was all vacation without the " ".

But GETTING there was another story altogether. Driving to North Carolina could not be considered a vacation even with extra quotation marks. The drive was supposed to take around 9 hours and instead took 14. Fourteen hours in a vehicle where the car seats are packed so tightly Primo can't even buckle his booster seat belt because it is underneath Terza's infant car seat base and only David, a highly trained specialist, who can basically detach his hand from his wrist to reach under, can handle it. Fourteen hours with children suffering from volume immodulation disorder (and regrettably, the volume is immoderately high, not low). Fourteen hours of fighting over whose turn it is to play 20 Questions, which song we should listen to, which DVD we should play on the DVD player that David and I bought thinking it would eliminate, not instigate fights. Fourteen hours of "I'm hungry!" and "I'm car sick!" and "She hit me!" and "You're not invited to my birthday party!"

And that's not even including the baby. 

The baby was actually the only easy going personality in the car, and for the first day of traveling, when we went to DC, and hit only a little bit of traffic, the baby was actually very smiley and patient and accommodating. But on the second day, when we checked out of our hotel in DC and headed straight into the heart of darkness known as Driving To The Outer Banks on Check In Day, well, she was just fed up with the whole scenario. And who could blame her? But the waves of infant screams emanating from the back seat were enough to cause permanent mental damage on all of us. 

The second day of driving was just a clusterfuck in general. Traffic everywhere. Diaper Explosions constantly. We had to stop every ten minutes, either to change a diaper, breastfeed the baby, console the baby, bring a kid to the bathroom, get some food or just escape from total insanity. So, although we only drove or 9 hours that day, we were on the road more like 12. The worst part was the total gridlock that we faced before we crossed the bridge to cross over to the island. The cars just wouldn't move, for hours. Finally, we crossed the bridge and I made David stop so I could nurse the baby and then I refused to get back in the car. 

"We can't go on," I said. 

"Nicole," said David, "we're like 15 miles away."

"Yes, but with the traffic, that's like another hour. I can't. I just can't."

"So what are we going to do?"

"We will just have to stay overnight here. In the parking lot to Kitty Hawk Elementary School."

"What is Mommy doing?" asked Seconda. 

"Mommy's having a nervous collapse," I said.

"What's that?" asked Seconda.

"She's just feeding the baby." answered David, "Give her a minute."

Of course, I got in the car and took deep breaths for the last hour it took to get 15 miles. And when we pulled into the driveway of the rented hours, twelve hours after leaving DC, my in laws said we were just in time for pizza. 

"We ordered it two hours ago but it just got here, with all the traffic."

And just as I was beginning to recover from the drive down, our vacation came to a close and we had to brave the drive back. But that is a lamentation for a another day.  Today, I'm just luxuriating in stretching my legs. 

Hunter

In North Carolina, my daughter learned how to catch animals and eat them. Sea creatures, primarily. She had an absolute LARK of a time fishing for blue crabs, watching us shake them into our coooler of doom, where they would freeze to death, and then asking when she could slurp them up. The next day, we did, indeed, steam the suckers and she cracked off their legs and sucked them into her gullet. Eating crabs has never seemed so violent. Then it was all about the oysters.

"I'm going to crack open their shells and slurp them up!" She could hardly wait.

While playing on the beach, she found a ton f teeny tiny crbas, each the size of a quarter, which she promptly captured for a later meal. When we told her they were too small to eat, she decided the next best thing would be to keep them as a pet. And how she loved those dwarf crabs, for a whole fifteen to twenty minutes.

I am a little concerned that her hunting zeal with continue now that we're back in the Big Apple. I half expect her to come to me with a dead rat or cockroach that she'd like to broil for supper. Its tough to acclimate to city living again after the great outdoors.

Going North

David never ceases to be amazed at how long it takes a group of ladies to organize an outing. If where to go for dinner takes a 10 minute convo, it stands to reason that planning a weekend getaway would take ten times as long. So, for weeks, we went back and forth, mostly about location:

Vegas?
Nah.
New Orleans?
Just went.
Miami?
Next time.

And then someone suggested Montreal.

Close.
Hip.
Speak a different language.
Serve French fries doused in gravy and cheese cruds.
Done.

It delivered on all those things. Except for the primary consideration. Montreal isn't what I'd call "close" to New York, unless you're comparing it to a drive to Mount Rushmore. I realized this as we sat in the car, on hour 9 of our raucous, wild girls getaway. Apparently, its only supposed to take six and a half hours but when its 106 degrees out and cars actually catch on fire on the highway, it slows the flow of traffic a bit.

We talked about sex.
We talked about careers.
We talked about the things we hate about our husbands and the dumb fights we have over and over again.
We talked more about sex.
We talked about kids and car seats and what to pack in a lunchbox and how long it takes them to go to sleep and whether or not they should have developed a conscience by age four.
We talked about old boyfriends.
We talked about our weddings and where we bought the dress and if we wore a veil.
We talked about our mothers.
And we were still only halfway there.

I'd say between the trip there and back, we squeezed in approximately 100 therapy sessions.

Montreal was charming - hotel was SWANK, the kind with zebra skin stools and toilets enclosed in glass stalls for no apparent reason. The endtable was carefully laid with large bottles of Grey Goose and Maker's Mark, the which probably cost a months' mortgage for a shot.

"Oooh look! A baseball cap with the hotel name on it!" my friend Miriam exclaimed.
"Don't touch that cap! Its not included! Its a trap."

The only real hitch was that our room was located directly, and I do mean, directly above the nightclub. I should have realized something was up when I saw the box of earplugs on the nightstand. Of course, I was too scared to touch the earplugs for fear they weren't included in the room and I'd find a charge of $32 EAR PLUGS on my bill upon checkout.

When we turned in at what I thought was an impressive 12:30am, the nightclub was just heating up and the bass was causing the bed to vibrate. I stuck the earplugs in, put my head under a very plush pillow and promptly willed my ears to cease functioning. That worked pretty well until I woke up a few hours later to a massive, white noise which sounded like our room was getting crushed in an enormous garbage disposal. It went on and on. It occurred to me that maybe something was amiss. But then I fell back asleep and when I woke up, we were still there, so I guess it was some rave-related incident.

The next morning my friend Gigi woke at 6 and went for a run before having a leisurely, European-paced breakfast with Miriam. I continued to sleep. When they rolled back into the room at 10:40, they were aghast to find me in bed. Ten hours? Sounds about right.

Once I'd had some coffee to shake off the post-sleep-binge fatigue, we were off to sight-see.

Notre Dame. Check.
Musee des Beaux Arts. Check.
Viuex Montreal.
Poutine. Check.
Canadian flags for the children? Check.

Another night of dreaming about garbage disposals while getting a bass thumping. Next morning, we were up and in the car by 9, ready for another marathon of talk therapy.

It wasn't how the boys would do it but it was just what the doctor ordered.

Ja! Iceland!

Who, you ask, are those happy, carefree, outdoorsy people having the time of their life? What can I say? Iceland works wonders for the beleaguered soul.



Yes, that is me, readying to ascend the harrowing heights so I can climb INTO the cravass. You could call it a crack in the mountain, but I prefer cravass, or crevice, if you're slightly less fancy.



Not only do I enjoy the natural beauty and splendor of the smooth-faced black pebble beach, I also enjoy the fact that the pebbles make free souvenirs.



David and I were so impressed by this tiny little church in a little fishing village called Olafsvick. Typically, I go for classic and grandiose when I'm church-hopping, but I loved this church's sleek modern design.


Oh, did I hit the button on the camera while holding hands in romantic reverie with my husband? I didn't notice. It was purely accidental. Its not like I PLANNED this amazingly heartfelt picture to frame on my wall across from my wedding photo.

This is the helpful sign on the top of the world's highest cliffs, warning visitors not to fall off.



And this is the volcano. No matter where we went on the penisula, the volcano was there, looking effortlessly majestic. Oh, to be as kick-ass as a volcano.

Guess who just went on a weekend trip to ICELAND??

ME, people! Me and my husband. The morale of this story is: never give up on your dreams. Or, alternately: don't let a little emergency appendectomy stop your fun.

We were supposed to go in early June but instead, had a staycation in the hospital. I can now definitively say that I prefer Iceland.

I got the whole Iceland idea in my head a few months ago, when I realized, suddenly, that David and I haven't been on a real, plane-ride-involved, romantic getaway since Seconda was a baby and I pumped my breasts all over Mexico. I realized that since I'm not lactating now, it might be considerably more enjoyable to have an international escapade. Then I realized that my sister is having her third baby in a few months. This gave me the kick in the pants I needed.

"We need to book a vacation immediately, "I told David, "Before my sister has her baby and uses up the family's babysitting reserve. My parents won't be able to watch our kids when they have to help her. This is ON."

Our requirements were:

Overseas.
Cheap airfare.
A place where we'd see something seriously fucking amazing.

All of which added up to Iceland.

The kids were jazzed because I read them bit of our travel book, about how Icelandic people tend to believe in supernatural creatures like trolls, gnomes, fairies, and how they eat puffin and rotten shark meat and horse steak.

"What's a puffin?" Sec asked.

"Like a penguin," I repiled.

"AHHHH! MOMMY"S GOING TO EAT A PENGUIN!" she shrieked. And then: "Bring back one for me to eat, too, OK Mommy?"

Sec was also very taken by the photo of a man and a woman standing in the steaming geothermal spas near Reykjavik called the Blue Lagoon.

"Is that going to be you and Daddy?"

"Yes," I said, "Daddy and I are going to go to the Blue Lagoon and kiss, just like that."

"But aren't you going to be scared to go inside the Black Lagoon?" she asked, "What if there's a crocodile in there?"

"I think we'll skip the Black Lagoon and just go to the Blue one" I said, "I don't think the swamp creature likes that one."

The funniest part about the trip is that my grandmother can't figure out where the hell we went since neither of us knows the Italian word for Iceland.

"Where you going?" she asked, "Irlandia?"

"No, that's Ireland," I said, "We are going to Iceland."

"Island? What kinda island?"

"No, not an island. ICE-land. La terra di ghiaccio."

"Oh my God -- you going to ALASKA?"


So there you have it, folks. We came, we saw, we did not eat rotten shark meat. More details to come when I've recuperated from my terribly thrilling, oh-so-jetsetter-y intercontinental travel.

Midwinter in the Middle of Nowhere

This is one Mid-Winter Break where we did, indeed, need a break. Space to roam, or at least a change of scenery. The trouble is, that costs money. Then a Mommy friend of mine told me about this overnight trip she likes to take with her three kids and husband about twice a year, to the middle of no-where New Jersey. I know, the location doesn’t sound tremendously appealing but located an hour and a half away from the city in the middle of no-where is a business hotel with cheap-o weekend rates on suites, which means a bedroom for parents and a separate living room with fold out couch for the kids. The suite set-up is absolutely key for us, as I can not tolerate being present for the whole three hour process of my kids winding down for sleep. The hotel also features a large indoor pool and hottub and –dealbreaker -- is a ten minute drive from a Funplex. For $130 bucks, two days and one night of funplexing, swimming and not cleaning up after ourselves could be had. I was sold.

On our way to middle of no-where Jersey, I told David, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t marry someone with more refined tastes?”

He said, “When we were dating and you told me your idea of a great vacation was to go to a motel and read Tolstoy all night, I knew I wanted to marry you.”

We didn’t quite read Tolstoy all night, but, I am happy to report, it was still a resounding success.

The great thing about kids is that they need so little to have fun. I am learning to take advantage of this, the way you learn to travel a lot during your baby’s infancy, but only with your second child.

The kids spent a good ten minutes just running around and shouting with joy and jubilation at all the things they’d found.

“They gave us shampoo!!!” shouted Sec from the bathroom, “Look at all this lotion!!”

“There is a COFFEE MAKER!” shouted Primo, “And they give you your own coffee! And sugar! And Splenda!”

The enthusiasm was contagious, “And there are tea bags too,” I exclaimed. “And they’re HERBAL so you can drink them! We can have a TEA PARTY!”

Once we discovered everything we’d been gifted in the room, I called the front desk to see if there was more shit they could give us for free. I didn’t even need anything; I just wanted to continue the feeling that I was getting an incredible bargain, making out like a bandit.

“Do you have a DVD player you can send to the room?”

:

“No.”

“What about free wireless?”

“No”

“Do you have a brush? Or toothpaste?”

“No.”:

I hung up and told David, “OK, we’ve got everything. Let’s hit the pool.”

Though the pool was about ten degrees too cold for my taste, the kids had a ball of a time splashing around and showing us how they “swim.”

“Good God, don’t ever let them out of your sight,” I said to David, “These kids can’t swim their way out of a bathtub.”

Upon returning to our room, the kids spent at least a half hour playing hide and go seek in the hotel room which turned out to be an ideal site for this game, since it had empty wardrobes, empty under-the-sink cabinets, and empty spaces under beds, coffee tables and armchairs.

Then we ran around the lobby for the better part of a half hour, sitting on all the different couches. While I was ordering a pizza delivery, Sec pulled the leaves off a plant and stuffed them in her underwear, where she hides things when she’s about to be caught red-handed. That’s when I thought we should make a hasty retreat back to our room, where we feasted on pizza and my children had their first taste of buffalo wings.

The room was spacious, a three bedroom by New York standards. Primo fell asleep in the fold-out sofa in the living room, Sec fell asleep in the carpeted area under the sink in the bathroom antechamber (don’t feel sorry for her, she loved it), and we watched “Just Married” in the master bedroom.

The night morning, Primo complained that he felt “nauseous,”

“I don’t even think you know what nauseous means,” I said annoyed after hearing it for the ten or eleventh time. The kid complains of something or other all the time.

Finally, I told him to just go brush his teeth with some minty toothpaste, the which he did and promptly threw up into the sink.

“I told you I know what nauseous means,” he said, piteously, wiping his mouth.

Did this stop us from going to the Funplex, driving bumper cars and riding in the motion simulator?

Of course not.

I fed the kid ice chips for an hour, then we went to Cracker Barrel where he ate a piece of toast with nothing on it while we ate chicken n’ dumplings, fried apples, country-fried steak and every other menu item under “Fast Track to Heart Attack”. Thus fattened up, we headed to the Funplex.

Neither the children not I had a good idea of what the Funplex would encompass. Would it be like Disneyland? Great Adventure? Coney Island?

Sort of, if Disneyland and Great Adventure and Coney Island consisted of bumper cars, a video arcade full of shoot-em-ups and one very terrifying room called “Foam Frenzy.”

The children of course, raced right in there, totally undeterred by the thunderous din coming out of the room. It sounded like some warlock was cooking up a hurricane in there, or a tornado, some kind of condition which involved high-velocity winds. Actually, it was just the sound of dozens of massive air tubes which shot foam balls everywhere, but mostly at your face. There were tubes that shot the balls out indiscriminately and guns which children could load with balls and fire directly at your eye. Primo hesitated at first, but once he loaded his Mega Blaster, there was no turning back. Sec meanwhile just lolled around on the ball floor like foam roadkill.

Then it was off to the bumper cars, which was another new experience for my little ones. Primo and Sec jumped into one together with Primo manning the wheel. That car didn’t move for two whole turns. David and I just stood on the perimeter yelling “Press on the pedal! The pedal! Do you know what that is? Is a big flat button, on the floor! Yes, that’s it, but now, steer with the wheel? The STEERING WHEEL!”

Its worth noting that the kids’ Tennessee cousin, who is five years old, is literally driving her father’s Gator and my kids don’t know what a steering wheel is.

Four or five rides in the motion simulator later, and we were done, Popped the “Robin Hood” audio book in the car’s CD player and drove two and a half hours to a totally different but equally in the middle of no-where place in New Jersey, to my parents’ place. Which is where we are now. Making a piñata. More on that, of course, next time.

Happy mid-wintering, readers, and may your days be foam-frenzy-free.

We're going to make it after all

We're in Tennessee. Its only an hour and a half flight, which sounds like no big deal -- smooth sailing -- but if you've been on any airplane with two young children, you'll know there is no such thing. I mean, it was a helluva lot easier than our recent red-eye flight to Italy, memories of which still haunt me in my dreams, but that's not saying much. This time, I was prepared to face heightened airport security, including pat downs and full body scans but neither of these presented themselves (what? I'm not hot enough for the full body scan?) Instead, the trouble came in the form of unexpected delays. Which were totally our fault.

Yeah, we got lost driving to the supercheap off-airport parking near Newark. And when you get lost near the airport, you're totally fucked -- one wrong turn, and you're stuck driving through the the entire airport, which'll easily cost you 15 minutes. OK, so maybe you wouldn't be fucked if you were the sort of persn who gave yourself more than a 15 minute cushion, but we just don't roll like that. When we finally found the parking spot, we saw the airport to the shuttle pulling away, which meant we'd have to wait another 20 minutes. We raced through check in and baggage drop off and the Air Train over to the terminal and through security, where no one was patted down or full body screened, as far as I know.

While lacing up our boots after security, I said, "I think we're going to make it after all." Then, I repeated it again, but more slowly and sagely, so that it would be clear to all who happened to hear that I was referring to more than just the flight. Then, realizing I sounded like I was in an episode of Grey's Anatomy, I had to laugh out loud. All of which made me sound like a nutjob.

We did make it after all, onto the plane, that is.

I'll tell you what didn't make it. Our Maclaren stroller, which we checked at the gate, the way you have to when you fly with a stroller. When we landed in Tennessee, the stewardess handed us our stroller, except that one of the front wheels had been mangled beyond recognition. The rubber had been ripped off and the steel or aluminum or whatever the hell they use to make the hub was twisted and bent all out of shape.

Now, I should note that we came by this stroller in the following fashion: my mom brought it over one day, looking new as can be, with no explanation. When I pressed her as to why she'd decided to get us a stroller, suddenly and for not apparent reason, she said that she had been leaving work one day and saw a poor, pitiful young mother trying to sell it on the street for money for her baby and so she bought it from her, for charity. I didn't buy this bullcrap, not for a second, so I kept pestering her and pestering her to explain where the hell she got this nice stroller and she finally confessed, in a very irritated tone: "I found it on the street in front our our office, OK? Some kid had vomited in it and those assholes, their parents, just left it there even though it was PRACTICALLY NEW! All that was wrong with it was a little VOMIT!" So that's how we got our swank Maclaren stroller, and really, when I saw it mangled up, I should have thought, "easy come, easy go." But I didn't.

"Do you see this?" I asked the stewardess, "My stroller's all mangled. I can't use it."

"Yes I see that ma'am, but unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it." she replied stiffly.

"Can't I file a damage claim or something?"

"Unfortunately not, because stroller wheels are not covered by our damage claims."

"Ok, here's the situation. I gave you this stroller in New York and it was fine. Now you give it back to me and its un-usable. So I need to talk to someone about this."

"Yes, I do understand that ma'am, but unfortunately, my supervisor is not here on Saturdays."

I'll spare you the rest of this edifying convo. After a few back and forths, I realized I wasn't getting anywhere and tried the airline ticket counter at the front of the airport only to find there was no one there. So I went downstairs to get David who was claiming our luggage, and cleaning up Sec, who had shit her pants on the airplane. She's going through a phase where she's too scared to poop and sometimes this results in shit-in-the-pants. Meanwhile, Primo's screaming about how he refuses to stop at the International House of Pancakes for lunch because the chance of rain today is over 0 percent and he wants to go straight home, since he is currently terrified of precipitation.

So with my two crazy kids, both of whom are crying and carrying on, I head BACK up to the ticket counter to see if, perchance, someone's decided to actually WORK even though it is Saturday and I do see someone but unfortunately, its the same stewardess who was totally useless at the gate.

I caught her looking at the door behind her when she saw me coming but I was walking too fast and she was caught, at the counter.

"Yeah, its me again."

"I see that ma'am."

"Ok, look, I'm not being unreasonable here. I had a stroller and now I don't and I need one for my daughter and I need your airline to take care of it because you broke it."

"But I can't do anything about it so why don't you tell me what you want to do."

I love Southeners because this is about as mad at they get. Snippy. In Newark, we'd be slinging four letter expletives back and forth by now.

"What I want to DO," I retorted, "is leave you this stroller, because I sure as hell can't use it, and I want to leave a note taped to it for your supervisor when he gets back on Monday. How about that?"

Which is precisely what I did. And not only did the stewardess not get more irritated and irate, she actually told me, as I was writing my little note, that she understood how I felt and she sure did hope I got my stroller fixed because she was a mom, too.

Makes you feel purty good to have a civilized exchange like that.

So we're here in the Smokies. Looks like we made it after all -- onto the plane, that is. As for the rest, that remains to be seen.

Airport Security

I am always fearful that David is going to lose his temper when going through airport security in NYC, and that we’ll miss our flight, at best, and be locked up in some secret dungeon at LaGuardia, at worst. I don’t fault him, really, for getting so perturbed. When you’re going through security with two little children, one of whom is utterly unmanageable -- making sure your daughter doesn’t run down the up escalator while you’re taking off your shoes; remembering to remove laptops from backpacks; locating the boarding passes; explaining the liquids in your sippy cups – well, its stressful enough. Add to that downright unfriendly security people and you’ve got yourself a disaster-in-the-making.

David hates it because he always feels like he’s breaking rules that no one ever explained to him in the first place.

“Sir, you need to remove the laptop from the sleeve,”

“You. Again. You can’t put anything else in the bucket with your laptop.”

“And your belt. Gotta come off.”

“Sir, sir, SIR! You need to push the buckets through.”

That just about did it for David. “I have to push it through? Since when?” he muttered as we put on shoes on, “I have to do EVERYTHING now?”

When we flew back from Knoxville, however, it was an entirely different story. While I was busy collapsing the stroller (which incidentally, the security man offered to do FOR ME) Seconda dashed over to the X ray machine where Primo, who’d been paying attention at LaGuardia, was helping to push the buckets through. Except Sec was just sticking her hand in the machine.

“Honey, don’t do that!” exclaimed a security worker about my mom’s age.

At which point I reached over and yanked her back.

Then the woman APOLOGIZED to me for startling my daughter. Who was, incidentally, totally unfazed. It would take the Nimean Lion to startle this one. Still, the woman said to me, sweet as cherry pie, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to alarm her, you know, but I was just scared since she was puttin’ her hands right on inside.”

“No need to apologize,” I replied.

Then the security worker on the other side of the machine suggested I have a seat while putting my shoes back on and told me – get this – to take my TIME. Toto, I don’t think we’re in New York anymore.

Did you know they have wooden rocking chairs in the airport in Knoxville? For your PLEASURE. Not only regular rocking chairs, but tiny kid-sized ones, too, and double-wides, in the event you want to snuggle with your loved one. They offer you rocking options, is what I’m saying. Free of charge. Take your time. Have a lulling rock. And a free refill of sweet tea while you’re at it.

I’m not saying New Yorkers aren’t friendly – hell, I’m a New Yorker myself and I’d like to think I’m compulsively congenial – but the man told me to TAKE MY TIME. Going through airport security. Amazing.

The South has its merits, I’ll tell you what.

Country Time

We've just returned from a week in the country. Summertime in Tennessee sure is sweet. I now know how Huck Finn felt. I mean, we found a TURTLE, a living box turtle just hanging out in the woods near my father-in-law's house. The kids didn't really care that much, but I was over the MOON. I was like, "Guys! This is some Bambi shit. We found a PET, a bona fide pet, not a water bug, just walking home." Then my father-in-law said, "Yeah, we eat turtles here. They taste good. Course we don't eat the littleuns like this; not enough meat on their bones."

We also spotted an owl that day. Are you getting this? Sec said, "Mommy, there's an owl." and I was like, "OK, honey, sure. I'll play, I see a Tyrannosauras Rex!" And DAvid was like, "There is a owl, up there in the tree." Insane.

The other thing we stumbled across, considerably less cute was a RATTLESNAKE. Man, can you imagine me coming across such a thing? While we were swimming in the river? Thankfully, I didn't see it and David and his sister didn't tell me about it til after they'd speedily ushered us out of the river. So, I guess that's what you get with nature - one day its a cute little turtle you encounter, the next a venonomous viper. Its why I try never to stray too far frm asphalt.

But, that's behind us now. Here's some highlights from our country holiday.

Catching tadpoles and feeding catfish in the pond:


Making elf houses:

For the record, 'twas I who made this house, not Primo and not Seconda, though they did scout for sticks and stones. I say this to point out how difficult elf-house-construction is. Or maybe I'm just a lousy naturalist. I mean, I never made a gnome home in my childhood. I read books and played Barbies all summer long. Have you done this shit before? It is freaking complicated.

What's NOT complicated is picking red ripe raspberries by the side of the road. Tasty little suckers. Sec went Blueberries-for-Sal style and ate all the berries up before they could land in her bag.



Playing with the garden hose. I know this doesn't sound thrilling to you but keep in mind that the only hose we have in our hose is the panty variety. Instant sprinkler!

Bulkhead-hoggers beware

So the key element to successful air travel with young children, the missing puzzle piece, the thing you cannot do without is . . . BULKHEAD. Ah, bulk-head. I love the tough, no-shit, slightly dirty sound of it. I. Always. Get. Bulkhead. Do I sound defiant? Challenging? That’s because I am. I DEFY you to take my bulkhead away from me. It’s not going to happen. That bulkhead is rightfully mine and I always get it.

Now, it’s not always easy because sometimes other people want the bulkhead.

Occasionally these people are also parents with a few little critters in tow and in these cases, when they’ve gotten to the bulkhead before me, well, fair is fair and there’s not much I can do, except try to squeeze into whatever remaining seats there are. But that, I find, is rare.

Usually the people who beat me to the bulkhead are just big old lazybones. Honestly, I can’t even tell you why someone without children or another kind of handicap would even want the bulkhead – I had never even heard the word “bulkhead” before Primo was born. But these people have heard of bulkhead. They’ve heard of it and they want it – maybe because it has more leg room, maybe just because it’s special – and since they are totally unencumbered, having no children or handicaps, they get to the gate before us and they get the bulkhead.

Do not think for a second that bulkhead is something that can’t be taken BACK. Getting bulkhead is not some irreversible process, like when a meter maid starts writing out a ticket and just can’t stop. So these non-parent, non-handicapped bulkhead-hoggers may reserve the bulkhead but they don’t have a hope in hell of keeping it when they’ve got me on the plane. I am indefatigable. Like a goddamn bulldog.

“Sorry, the bulkhead is taken,” the airline rep at the gate informs me.

“All of it?” I reply.

She nods.

“Well, is there any way you could move the people sitting there?” I ask as sweetly as possible, “You see, I have two young children, and it is really helpful for us to sit in bulkhead, not just for us, but for everyone on the plane. Trust me, the kids will be much less of a bother if you can just get us the bulkhead.”

Sometimes this works. But sometimes I have to take it to the next level. Sometimes the airline rep says she can’t do anything about it but that if the people sitting there want to switch me with, they certainly can.

That’s when things get nasty.

“Its OK Nik,” David pleads as we ready to board, “We don’t need the bulkhead, “Its fine.”

What he’s really saying is, “Please don’t make a scene.” And he can forget it.

“It is NOT fine,” I reply, “We DO need the bulkhead so Seconda won’t kick the back of someone’s seat or stand up and pull the hair of the person in front of her, and it also really helps her to sit on the floor in front and play with her dolls and lie down or whatever, We need it AND we deserve it.”

In this one specific circumstance, I feel totally, one hundred percent entitled. That bulkhead belongs to parents the way highchairs at restaurants belong to us and changing tables in bathrooms belong to us. People without kids have EVERYTHING ELSE to enjoy – such as a flight uninterrupted by whining, nagging, and tantrums. They can read their books and magazines and have illuminating conversation and meet new people and join the mile high club or just sleep. Sleep, for God’s sake! I think its just plain greedy to want the bulkhead on top of that.

So we get on board and I very politely ask the bulkhead-hoggers, often tall, skinny twenty-something guys traveling alone or else middle-aged couples who have a lot of bags and seem nervous about flying, if they wouldn’t mind switching seats with us since I have these young children and it would really help us out to have a little more room to entertain them. Often this simple plea works. But on the rare occasions when it doesn’t, I have to get nasty. I just do.

That’s when David takes the kids and moves down the aisle while I rip the bulkhead-hoggers a new asshole, calling them rude and selfish and telling them they are gonna regret it when my kids scream and yell and puke on them for two hours straight.

This is how I always get bulkhead. It may not win me any popularity contests but I have to say it makes the temporary relocation of me and my family seem a little more like a vacation. It really does.

Family Vacation

This post is coming to you directly from East Tennessee, folks, the heart of the Smoky Mountains. David, the kids and I are on what you might call a family vacation.

You might call it that but I’d urge you not to. Using the word “vacation” to describe the temporary relocation of oneself and one’s progeny in pursuit of diversion is a little misleading. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a real vacation with the kids. We’ve had lots of adventures against many different backdrops. We’ve licked gelatos in front of the Pantheon, we’ve whizzed over the Golden Gate Bridge, we’ve frolicked on beaches and mountainsides and crooned in rental cars and played tag in airports in many a city across this country. But was it a vacation? No, my readers, it was not.

A vacation is anything you do without the children. Like, for instance, when David and I went to get our teeth cleaned and sat in examination rooms that were across the hall from each other, that was a vacation. We got to chat a bit on the walk over, made provocative gestures across the hall to each other before the dental hygienists arrived and then we kissed with clean, slightly-sore mouths afterwards, and compared the sample mouthwashes we’d received. That was a vacation. Taking two kids under four on an airplane is no vacation. Period.

And listen, David and I are pros at air travel with the kids, because we’ve been doing this trip to Tennessee a few times a year since Primo was a few months old. So we know what we’re doing. I pack enough snacks to keep a small village fed for a week, including a secret stash of lollipops in case we run into unexpected delays or mishaps. I pack little presents purchased from the dollar bins at Target and wrapped in magazine pages, which prolongs the enjoyment of each item by a good minute. Coloring books, regular books, Play doh, magnets, stickers – my carry on is like a carnival of fun for toddlers and preschoolers.

I also have one other very important but challenging trick up my sleeve when we travel on planes with the kids. It is the most critical, the key element to successful air travel, the missing puzzle piece, the thing you cannot do without. It is . . . .

The first-ever mom amok cliffhanger! I warned you I was getting into some tantric shit. To find out, dear readers, you will have to tune in tomorrow. Or if you’d like, feel free to guess in the comments section. I will award whoever guesses the correct answer with one perfectly fresh New York bagel, type of your choosing, sent directly to your home. Cream cheese and lox to be added on your own.