2020 Hottest Vacation Destination: Tulsa (Part 2)

PART 2: The Drive

An hour into the drive, Jack had already established dominance. He stuck his nose up at my bento boxes in a way that I can only describe as vengeful. And really, what the hell did I do to you, bro? Show concern about your sugar levels and impending tooth decay? Excuse the fuck out of me.

Like I mentioned before, I had back up emergency "grab bags" filled with toys. Jack was screaming his head off at this point, so to distract him I said "Hey Jack? Do you want......... a present?????" Looking back, I will regret these words for the rest of my life and I will never again offer toys as bribery on long road trips. Experts (Pinterest moms) suggest having new toys on long trips as distractions, but never once did they suggest offering them in "gift" form and I can only assume that's because kids will never stop asking for more.

I frantically threw him a brown bagged wrapped present, and he excitedly opened it, & was happy. For about 10 luxurious minutes he seemed satisfied, then he politely demanded "Another present, mama?". I never saw that coming, I guess I didn't realize he would know the extent of my present buying. He must have seen the large suitcase of brown bags packed tightly in my front passenger seat, squeezing Hugo into uncomfortable positions. I laughed it off, Why don't you play with that toy, I asked? "PRESENT, MAMA!" And that started a new loop of demands that I never could have predicted. Added to the chaos, are the times that I would try to just pass him a brown bag "grab bag" of snacks. When he realized it wasn't a new toy, he would lose his shit. It was like some sort of Pavlovian experiment gone incredibly wrong, with way more crying (mostly on my end).

Doing the calculations for the trip, I came to the early conclusion that I'd have to AT LEAST divide it into 3 days of driving, staying at 2 hotels intermittently along the way. If I drove continuously, that would be about 5 hours of driving each day. In the end, I would guess I drove about 7-9 hours each day, and probably 5 of those were filled with one of three of us crying uncontrollably. John scoffed when I said I'd be staying at 2 hotels along the way (he thought it'd be at most 2 days of driving), but it was by far the best foreshadowing I did of the entire trip (that, and packing wine). At the end of each day, I couldn't imagine driving another 20 minutes before driving our vehicle directly into traffic, screaming about snacks & presents the entire time.

Day 1 was hard, but I expected it would be. It was the most difficult day of physically driving, as it was through a mountain pass with twisty, insane roads and I really had to pay attention. At one point of almost the climax of the mountain pass, we hit fog and I could barely see. We'd been on the road for about 4.5 hours at this point and Jack was already done, and he started complaining about being HOT, MAMA. I was barely paying attention to him, since I was concentrated on the foggy mountainous road ahead of us. All of a sudden, he was screaming differently than normal and I looked back to find him gagging and choking up black- brown sludge puke. ALL THOSE DAMN ADORABLE MINI OREOS- I KNEW THEY WERE A MISTAKE. I quickly pulled over and got him changed and calmed down. I think it was at this point that I started my crying bursts, because I had yelled at him right before he puked, trying to concentrate on driving and needing him to be quiet. This drive was so goddamn stressful, but for me even to take a tiny amount of my stress out onto Jack made me feel like the Worst Mother in the World.

We made it to the hotel in Limon, CO and ordered Pizza Hut and swam in the pool and calmed down. I got both boys to sleep in our king bed rather easily and enjoyed a few well deserved glasses of boxed wine until I woke up to Ace screaming uncontrollably for seemingly no reason. He was inconsolable and I couldn't figure out what was wrong for probably an hour until I changed his diaper on a whim and realized he had pooped (he hasn't pooped in the middle of the night in months so it wasn't normal- I BLAME PIZZA HUT). Then I felt like the Worst Mother in the World again and cried again. This was already twice in one day, which is more than I've cried in the entire year. We were still on Day 1.

The next day we started out positive even though I was running on just a few hours of sleep. We got hotel breakfast and I managed 3 bags and a mini cooler and 2 babies and a huge dog through the hotel one handedly. I was low on gas, but didn't want to stop so early in the day, so I thought I would wait. Once we crossed the border in to Kansas, I realized my mistake. I've never been to Kansas (that I remember), but apparently gas stations are few and far between. I was running on fumes and scared shitless of breaking down in the middle of nowhere with this vehicle full of drama queens. I have never been so anxious, hurtling down the highway, with my butthole and jaws tightly clenched.

On a side note, thinking about my butthole clenched, I wanted to mention that this ENTIRE ROAD TRIP, I never drank a single coffee. Only because I knew if I stopped at a road side coffee shop, the odds of me having to pull over immediately and wreck some gas station bathroom with 2 kids crawling all over the gas station bathroom floor and possibly opening the door on me----- dear fucking GOD not worth all the caffeine in the world. I never once even peed at a gas station bathroom for this exact reason.

So there we were, about to run out of gas with our buttholes clenched, but luckily at probably the last minute we found a gas station. It was probably the only stroke of luck on this entire trip. At this point, you might be wondering how Ace was doing on this trip- and surprisingly he was the best out of all of us. He slept almost the entire driving session each day. If he would've been crying or screaming on top of Jack's incessant demands, I honestly don't think I'd be alive today to tell the story. That's how bad it was.

End of day 2 landed us in Salina, KS (ever heard of it??) with me at my wit's end. I was begging John to drive 4 hours to meet us here for the night and drive down the last leg with us. At this point, I was crying at the drop of a fruit snack which is REALLY not like me. I'm not lying when I say, I cried more on this road trip than I have probably in the past 10 years combined. It was mostly out of frustration, but also because I felt so guilty whenever I yelled at Jack and feeling like the Worst Mother in the World.

The morning of the 3rd day, I was determined to stay positive and get an early start and get the fuck out of Kansas. No offense, Kansas, but I honestly can't believe people choose to live there. There is fucking NOTHING. No trees, no lakes, no towns, no goddamn gas stations. 0/10 stars would not recommend. I was speeding, I was ignoring the kids and turning up the radio and throwing whatever shoddy gifts and snacks I had left at Jack in the backseat, I was going off the rails. These days were the longest, hardest days of my life. Harder than being pregnant, harder than giving birth, harder than tricking John into marrying me. Physically and mentally, I was so exhausted and I couldn't wait to get to John and just be like HERE, take these KIDS.