Road Trip or Bust!
One of the things that I miss since having a kid is the freedom to pick up go somewhere on a whim. There aren't many things I miss to be honest, I love being a mom, but with a crib midget it is far more difficult to get away for a weekend, let alone our favourite U.S. destination. It had been forever since we'd been to Vegas and our annual Christmas getaway was looking more and more unlikely. This made me a sad panda. I think I tried to plot every feasible way to get down there, from Grandma babysitting for 3 days to just bringing the runt with us. I just needed a break. I was exhausted from work and knew I was going to stay just as frazzled; I work in retail- Christmas and Boxing Day are the busiest days and I needed a recharge. And seeing as though Vegas wasn't an option, our next best plan was a short drive away. To a mall. 😡 In Edmonton. The retail in me is cringing at the mere thought of being in Canada's biggest mall 8 days before Christmas. But I wanted out of Calgary, so, Road Trip!
The last time we travelled with Maddy she was six and seven months old. One hotel stay, one staying with relatives. Kelowna and Halifax respectively, a car ride and a plane, I'm feeling pretty confident in our travelling abilities! I fail to realize though that this trip she's now a toddler who mostly hates the car, really hates sitting still for any length of time and only naps once a day. Back when she was a baby she slept in the car frequently, napped a lot and couldn't stand let alone walk. Caring for her was as easy as tummy time and pushing her in the stroller. Nowadays she'd rather do horse gallops, somersaults and demands to push her own empty stroller. The night before we go, I've packed our bags, gotten a dog sitter and check the weather. A major snow storm is headed our way. Oh good lord no, nothing can stop this from happening. We gather that the snow is supposed to hit Calgary and not Edmonton so we hit the road. It's a beautiful sunny drive and princess is awake for the first half hour or so. We did plan to drive through her nap so this is perfect. She sleeps until we are fifteen minutes away from the mall and we head off in search of lunch. Going through the list of restaurants I was adamant that we eat somewhere new. I didn't drive for 3 hours to eat at shitty Boston Pizza. Our options are surprisingly limited and we decide on a place called Jungle Jims. I have unrealistically high expectations of this place and I'm hoping for a Rainforest Cafe type joint. This isn't even in the same realm, Jungle Jims. It's basically a hallway with 8 booths and a few low tables in the centre. The "wooden" booths are supposed to look/feel like a hut and the hanging string lighting is fading, with a few burnt out bulbs. The server doesn't come to the table until after I've spent the first 5 minutes of our visit changing a poo bum. She's slow to begin with and it never recovers. The food is mediocre. The beer (mine anyway) tasted like dishwasher soap. Ugh I think, hurry up and eat so we can leave. We should have gone to the food court.
Let's hit up the pool and forget about the crappy lunch! I've never been to the pool at WEM, hubby has when he was a kid, but it's basically new to him too. It is enormous! Seeing it from the viewing areas doesn't even do it justice. You emerge from the underground changerooms and you're blasted with the sound of rushing water and the smell of chemicals cleaning the probably very dirty water. We head to the beach, play in there for a while and the kid pool area. As we play and swim M decides to go on some of the slides. Okay babe, off you go. I watch as he climbs the stairs and then lose him in the confusing staircases. I think I see him drop through the bottom of the Typhoon slide and then he disappears again. I have this gut feeling to look up high and I see him flying through the loop of the tallest, droppiest looking ride. He surfaces back to our kid pool and tells me all about the rides. Tells me I should do them. I tell him where to go. I used to love waterslides, not so much anymore, and I'm not even sure why. Something about getting older? My adult on-set claustrophobia? Have a kid, I don't want to die? Of course that's an exaggeration, but I just don't feel like hurling myself through a tube getting a wedgie and water up my nose at the same time. Nope, I'm good down here on the ground. We play in the waves, I take her down some bigger kids slides, we hot tub for a few while daddy goes on another slide. Back to the beach and waves and we're about done. For 2 hours of fun that was worth the drive right there.
We dry off and head up to do some more shopping, Santa is coming you know! The mall is pretty busy and I'm starting to lose my patience. A small side trip to go see Santa and wave at him, and off to find some dinner. We really need to redeem our shit lunch choice and sit down for a bit.
And it goes to hell. Right about now.
Sherlock Holmes is a cute pub on Bourbon Street, near a mall entrance (which turns out we will need shortly), and allows kids on the restaurant side. Lovely, lets park our butts here and eat. We order our drinks and give Maddy an iPhone to sit down and watch some videos. Food order in and although the restaurant doesn't seem too busy it feels like dinner is taking a long time. I notice that Maddy is coughing a ton and has a fever. Oh goodie. I stay back with her while I send M to find a drugstore and get some Tylenol. M takes his phone away from her which leads to crying. This is a usual reaction to such an event but the crying this time isn't stopping. I pace the restaurant carrying her in my arms while I try to settle her down. At this point I'm not even sure why she's crying and M is taking way longer than I expected (no fault of his own!). I'm just stressing out. And then she barfs. All over her, all over me. I rush us to the ladies room and have to try to teach her to stand over the toilet and how to spit. None of these things are being retained by my screaming child. Just more puke, more crying, more coughing. I furiously text M to say she's vomiting, he is somewhere in the mall trying to get back to us. I get her back outside to our table and rush the server to pack up all of our food which has now just arrived. I apologize, pay the bill very quickly, leaving a large tip and chug my very full beer. Do NOT judge me!! LOL. It was expensive, I was stressing and I wasn't going to waste it. M at this point was off to get the car. Luckily we were at the exit and I abandoned our very full stroller to deal with her in the washroom and then carry her outside. The icing on the cake would have been someone stealing our packages. I get her buckled in, thank god she's calmed down now and isn't crying anymore. M goes back in the mall to fetch our packaged up dinner and the buggy. Once everyone is buckled in we have a mini argument about if we stay the night and get to the hotel or just drive back to Calgary. I understood his point of view (go home) but I thought that we just needed to get to the hotel and settle in. It's paid for, we can't get a refund, and I didn't want to risk a 3 hour drive home with a barf kid. Much to M's dismay we go to the hotel. Checked in, I get us settled in the room while M searches for a beer store and parks the car. He's gone about half an hour, just long enough for Maddy to eat almost all of her dinner and find her spunk again. She's doing bear crawls around the room and exploring like nothing was the matter just an hour ago.
By this time it's getting late and she needs to go to sleep. A factor we never considered though is that she's sleeping in her playpen beside our bed. This means that until she's asleep we basically have to lay in the dark, silent, waiting. It was around 9 when she finally laid down, drank her bottle and I thought we were on the right track. But there in the glow of the bathroom right we hear "ripppp" "riiiiipppp" I don't say anything, mostly because I don't want to rile her up, but secondly so I can figure out what the noise is. We hear it again and again. I finally look over the edge of the pen and she's wide awake dragging her fingernails back and forth along the mesh lining. I roll her over and tuck her back in, say it's time to go to sleep and I lay back down. "Riiiiip" "Riiiiiipppp" heehee. Im laying beside M, tears pouring down my face, belly laughing as quietly as I can. I have a full on giggle fit listening to her and it goes on a solid ten minutes. I have to rub her back for a few minutes, but I still can't keep my laughter under control; M has to take over petting her duties. About thirty minutes later she is finally asleep but at this point approaching ten pm, it's for sure my bed time. We've had long day and I just want to wake up tomorrow refreshed. Luckily for us she sleeps through the night and we're up around 730.
Early morning up and at 'em so we can get to breakfast. M has chosen an old school diner nearby and M is happy as can be. No sign of her issues last night and she is eating all her breakfast. Good start to the morning, off to the mall now to finish up our tourist visit! We knew we wanted to get some mini-golfing in, and we had no idea what to expect. It did not disappoint! haha. We tried to show her how to use the club, she would rather throw the ball. We showed her how to hit the ball into the hole; she'd try to play in the water. She ran from hole to hole trying to disrupt the other games. We had to let some other kids play through because she just stalled us while playing on the bridge. Both of us knew that this was going to be a crap shoot, but it was fun and entertaining and made up for the shit that went down at dinner.
After wrapping up at the mini golf course we figured we were pushing our luck with nap times, because she needed to be in the car asleep for about the whole three hour drive home. Stopped for a snack and gas and hit the road. Maybe about 30 minutes into the drive home she's still not asleep and I'm stressing out. Not only does she need a nap but we're about to drive into one of the biggest snowstorms we've seen in years. Our three hour drive home could end up being four if the highways are terrible. Kid please sleep I said out loud, while I said a little prayer to myself.
I'm pretty sure what Madison thought I said was "Maddy it'll be really great if you could barf all over yourself and your car seat". Because that's what happened. Engage Mom Freak Out Mode when I yell at M to pull over, haul ass out of the car and start barking orders at M. He doesn't take kindly to that as he's much more concerned about our safety than her outfit. I mean I also was, of course, but it turned into a lesson in our marriage that we will not soon forget. Child barf can wait until the next exit so no one takes a semi up the ass while digging out a new shirt from the trunk.
Our little ten minute side of the road stop was over and the ride home was mostly silent. Maddy finally fell asleep, I stewed on how many times she threw up and worried if she was actually ill, M drove in silence coming into some terrible weather. We made it home in one piece no worse for wear. All in all it was a good little getaway and we learned so many new "what not to do" things this trip. And like suckers for punishment we're trying to see if we can go up there again. Hopefully with no stomach issues 🤞. Maybe I'll go on a big slide next time 😉
The last time we travelled with Maddy she was six and seven months old. One hotel stay, one staying with relatives. Kelowna and Halifax respectively, a car ride and a plane, I'm feeling pretty confident in our travelling abilities! I fail to realize though that this trip she's now a toddler who mostly hates the car, really hates sitting still for any length of time and only naps once a day. Back when she was a baby she slept in the car frequently, napped a lot and couldn't stand let alone walk. Caring for her was as easy as tummy time and pushing her in the stroller. Nowadays she'd rather do horse gallops, somersaults and demands to push her own empty stroller. The night before we go, I've packed our bags, gotten a dog sitter and check the weather. A major snow storm is headed our way. Oh good lord no, nothing can stop this from happening. We gather that the snow is supposed to hit Calgary and not Edmonton so we hit the road. It's a beautiful sunny drive and princess is awake for the first half hour or so. We did plan to drive through her nap so this is perfect. She sleeps until we are fifteen minutes away from the mall and we head off in search of lunch. Going through the list of restaurants I was adamant that we eat somewhere new. I didn't drive for 3 hours to eat at shitty Boston Pizza. Our options are surprisingly limited and we decide on a place called Jungle Jims. I have unrealistically high expectations of this place and I'm hoping for a Rainforest Cafe type joint. This isn't even in the same realm, Jungle Jims. It's basically a hallway with 8 booths and a few low tables in the centre. The "wooden" booths are supposed to look/feel like a hut and the hanging string lighting is fading, with a few burnt out bulbs. The server doesn't come to the table until after I've spent the first 5 minutes of our visit changing a poo bum. She's slow to begin with and it never recovers. The food is mediocre. The beer (mine anyway) tasted like dishwasher soap. Ugh I think, hurry up and eat so we can leave. We should have gone to the food court.
Let's hit up the pool and forget about the crappy lunch! I've never been to the pool at WEM, hubby has when he was a kid, but it's basically new to him too. It is enormous! Seeing it from the viewing areas doesn't even do it justice. You emerge from the underground changerooms and you're blasted with the sound of rushing water and the smell of chemicals cleaning the probably very dirty water. We head to the beach, play in there for a while and the kid pool area. As we play and swim M decides to go on some of the slides. Okay babe, off you go. I watch as he climbs the stairs and then lose him in the confusing staircases. I think I see him drop through the bottom of the Typhoon slide and then he disappears again. I have this gut feeling to look up high and I see him flying through the loop of the tallest, droppiest looking ride. He surfaces back to our kid pool and tells me all about the rides. Tells me I should do them. I tell him where to go. I used to love waterslides, not so much anymore, and I'm not even sure why. Something about getting older? My adult on-set claustrophobia? Have a kid, I don't want to die? Of course that's an exaggeration, but I just don't feel like hurling myself through a tube getting a wedgie and water up my nose at the same time. Nope, I'm good down here on the ground. We play in the waves, I take her down some bigger kids slides, we hot tub for a few while daddy goes on another slide. Back to the beach and waves and we're about done. For 2 hours of fun that was worth the drive right there.
We dry off and head up to do some more shopping, Santa is coming you know! The mall is pretty busy and I'm starting to lose my patience. A small side trip to go see Santa and wave at him, and off to find some dinner. We really need to redeem our shit lunch choice and sit down for a bit.
And it goes to hell. Right about now.
Sherlock Holmes is a cute pub on Bourbon Street, near a mall entrance (which turns out we will need shortly), and allows kids on the restaurant side. Lovely, lets park our butts here and eat. We order our drinks and give Maddy an iPhone to sit down and watch some videos. Food order in and although the restaurant doesn't seem too busy it feels like dinner is taking a long time. I notice that Maddy is coughing a ton and has a fever. Oh goodie. I stay back with her while I send M to find a drugstore and get some Tylenol. M takes his phone away from her which leads to crying. This is a usual reaction to such an event but the crying this time isn't stopping. I pace the restaurant carrying her in my arms while I try to settle her down. At this point I'm not even sure why she's crying and M is taking way longer than I expected (no fault of his own!). I'm just stressing out. And then she barfs. All over her, all over me. I rush us to the ladies room and have to try to teach her to stand over the toilet and how to spit. None of these things are being retained by my screaming child. Just more puke, more crying, more coughing. I furiously text M to say she's vomiting, he is somewhere in the mall trying to get back to us. I get her back outside to our table and rush the server to pack up all of our food which has now just arrived. I apologize, pay the bill very quickly, leaving a large tip and chug my very full beer. Do NOT judge me!! LOL. It was expensive, I was stressing and I wasn't going to waste it. M at this point was off to get the car. Luckily we were at the exit and I abandoned our very full stroller to deal with her in the washroom and then carry her outside. The icing on the cake would have been someone stealing our packages. I get her buckled in, thank god she's calmed down now and isn't crying anymore. M goes back in the mall to fetch our packaged up dinner and the buggy. Once everyone is buckled in we have a mini argument about if we stay the night and get to the hotel or just drive back to Calgary. I understood his point of view (go home) but I thought that we just needed to get to the hotel and settle in. It's paid for, we can't get a refund, and I didn't want to risk a 3 hour drive home with a barf kid. Much to M's dismay we go to the hotel. Checked in, I get us settled in the room while M searches for a beer store and parks the car. He's gone about half an hour, just long enough for Maddy to eat almost all of her dinner and find her spunk again. She's doing bear crawls around the room and exploring like nothing was the matter just an hour ago.
By this time it's getting late and she needs to go to sleep. A factor we never considered though is that she's sleeping in her playpen beside our bed. This means that until she's asleep we basically have to lay in the dark, silent, waiting. It was around 9 when she finally laid down, drank her bottle and I thought we were on the right track. But there in the glow of the bathroom right we hear "ripppp" "riiiiipppp" I don't say anything, mostly because I don't want to rile her up, but secondly so I can figure out what the noise is. We hear it again and again. I finally look over the edge of the pen and she's wide awake dragging her fingernails back and forth along the mesh lining. I roll her over and tuck her back in, say it's time to go to sleep and I lay back down. "Riiiiip" "Riiiiiipppp" heehee. Im laying beside M, tears pouring down my face, belly laughing as quietly as I can. I have a full on giggle fit listening to her and it goes on a solid ten minutes. I have to rub her back for a few minutes, but I still can't keep my laughter under control; M has to take over petting her duties. About thirty minutes later she is finally asleep but at this point approaching ten pm, it's for sure my bed time. We've had long day and I just want to wake up tomorrow refreshed. Luckily for us she sleeps through the night and we're up around 730.
Early morning up and at 'em so we can get to breakfast. M has chosen an old school diner nearby and M is happy as can be. No sign of her issues last night and she is eating all her breakfast. Good start to the morning, off to the mall now to finish up our tourist visit! We knew we wanted to get some mini-golfing in, and we had no idea what to expect. It did not disappoint! haha. We tried to show her how to use the club, she would rather throw the ball. We showed her how to hit the ball into the hole; she'd try to play in the water. She ran from hole to hole trying to disrupt the other games. We had to let some other kids play through because she just stalled us while playing on the bridge. Both of us knew that this was going to be a crap shoot, but it was fun and entertaining and made up for the shit that went down at dinner.
I'm pretty sure what Madison thought I said was "Maddy it'll be really great if you could barf all over yourself and your car seat". Because that's what happened. Engage Mom Freak Out Mode when I yell at M to pull over, haul ass out of the car and start barking orders at M. He doesn't take kindly to that as he's much more concerned about our safety than her outfit. I mean I also was, of course, but it turned into a lesson in our marriage that we will not soon forget. Child barf can wait until the next exit so no one takes a semi up the ass while digging out a new shirt from the trunk.
Our little ten minute side of the road stop was over and the ride home was mostly silent. Maddy finally fell asleep, I stewed on how many times she threw up and worried if she was actually ill, M drove in silence coming into some terrible weather. We made it home in one piece no worse for wear. All in all it was a good little getaway and we learned so many new "what not to do" things this trip. And like suckers for punishment we're trying to see if we can go up there again. Hopefully with no stomach issues 🤞. Maybe I'll go on a big slide next time 😉
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