It's Sunday evening, and the girls are in bed. It's only 7:00, but my eyelids are feeling pretty droopy, and Danny is looking pretty dopey on the couch next to me. It's been a long weekend! It was supposed to be a nice, relaxing, family weekend in the city... our ultrasound, followed by a daddy-daughter date for Gracie and Daddy, dinner with our besties, a night in the hotel, and the Backyardigans live on stage to round out the weekend of family fun. And although all of those things took place, a comedy of errors and mishaps made the weekend, probably single-handedly, the most exhausting relaxing weekend ever!
We had our second 3D ultrasound scheduled for 10:30 Saturday morning. The plan was to be on the road by 8:00. That would give us plenty of time for the drive, and for those things that always take longer than you expect; coffee stops and whatnots. Nanny Fillmore called at 7:20 to wish us a happy trip. She was surprised that we were still lounging around in bed. We talked for a few minutes, and as I was saying goodbye, I told her we'd "see" her at 10:30 when the appointment started. She said, "you mean 10:00." I said, "No, 10:30." And she said, "I'm pretty sure the email said 10:00." Crap. After getting her to confirm the time in email, I hung up the phone, yelled "holy crap!" and proceeded to rush everybody out the door. Although all the clothes and suitcase items were ready, they were not technically packed, and we were all still in our jammies. I shoved everything in the suitcase, and with the help of Danny, got ourselves and the girls dressed, snacks packed, teeth brushed, and everybody out the door by 7:54.
Leaving by 8:00 would still give us 2 hours to get to the city, find parking, do potty breaks, and arrive at the appointment with a few minutes to spare. But the girls were crying for smoothies (which I did not have time to make) and Danny needed his coffee. We loaded up the car, and headed off. I mentioned that it was nice that it had stopped raining and Danny said, "Oh shit, the windshield wipers!" Those would be the $50.00 windshield wipers that we bought to replace the crap ones that weren't really working on the car. It only took 10 seconds to realize that with a rainfall warning for Sunday, we needed decent wipers. "Turn around!" I yelled! We were back on the road in record time, picked up breakfast from McDonalds, and hit the highway. 8:08!
Halfway up the on-ramp we both realized that something didn't quite feel right. We had had the tires balanced on the car after a particularly vibration-heavy drive to Fredericton the weekend before, and this was the first time we had the car back on the highway. The vibration was worse. Much worse. And I felt like I was going to be sea sick. After assuring me that it was still safe, just not terribly good for the car, we made the decision to carry on, we were barely going to make it as it was!
The vibration lessoned about 20 minutes into the drive and we arrived in Halifax with 15 minutes to spare for our appointment. We went into the appointment, got all settled in and looked at the screen, excited to see how much the little boy had grown in the last 10 weeks. We saw nothing except arms and legs. Apparently baby boy Ford decided to play shy and held both arms (and a leg) in front of his face the entire time. Halfway through she got me to take a yoga break (downward dog, anybody?) in the hopes of getting him to move. He did move, but not the way we wanted. We could now see his spine and the back of his head, and only arms and legs still. I said, "I can't even make out the limbs anymore!" The ultrasound tech felt horrible and told us to go for a walk and she would try to squeeze us back in for another peek in 20 minutes, and hopefully the baby would be in a better position by then. 20 minutes later, we finally get to the baby's face... for about 3 seconds before he curled back up behind arms and legs again! Oh well, we got a couple decent pictures, and we'll see him for real in another 10 weeks anyway!
Danny and Gracie were going to a 12:40 showing of Mr. Peabody, so we needed to get checked into the hotel. We headed over to the Radisson, and I offered to see if our room was ready. It was then that Danny realized he had forgotten his wallet, with his military ID for our room discount. Luckily, they said they didn't need it and let us check in at 11:30. I came back out to the car to let Danny know. We were going in to have a quick bite to eat, and Ella and I were going to nap while Danny and Gracie went to the movies. "I'll get the girls, you get the suitcase." I said. I started to unbuckle Ella when I heard Danny said, "Where's the suitcase, Sammy?" I just looked at him. "What do you mean where's the suitcase?" I asked. "It's not here." He said. A few things ran through my head at that moment, but the only thing that mattered was that the Backyardigan tickets were in the suitcase and that was the whole reason for the freaking trip. "Okay," I said. "Let's just get inside and we'll figure this out." We made it up to our hotel room (which was awesome, by the way!) and after looking up the website on Danny's phone (guess what else was in the suitcase - my laptop!), got a hold of the box office. They would issue us a ticket stub the next day and we could still go to the concert. Okay. All good.
Gracie wanted to know when she could go to the movie. Danny's cell-phone beeped because it was dying. My cell-phone beeped because it was dying. Charger. In the suitcase. "And when can we go swimming?" Gracie asked excitedly. "Yeaaaaaah. Swimming!" Ella echoed. Swimsuits. In the suitcase. Danny and Gracie were supposed to leave for the movies, like, now. We quickly looked up the timings. It was cutting it close to our reservation for dinner with Auntie Leah and Uncle Dave. Okay. A quick trip to Walmart. Pick up the necessities. Throw Ella and I out of the car while it was pretty much still moving so Danny and Gracie could make the next showing of the movie. Crisis (crises??) averted. We ran into Walmart for a few necessities. Underwear, socks, shirts for the girls, mascara for me. A cell phone charger. Tylenol for me and Ella (we were both sick), Vicks vapour rub (Ella couldn't stop coughing), new sleeping stuffed animals (cause the girls wont sleep without them), a book to read at bedtime (because heaven forbid we don't stick with the freaking bedtime routine!), toothbrushes, toothpaste. Oh, and swimsuits. $225.00 later, we had the necessities in hand. "How much did that cost?" Danny asked. "I'm not even going to tell you!" I said. That was not in the budget for our family weekend away!
Danny dropped Ella and I back off at the hotel, and I took her up for a nap. Auntie Leah came for a visit at the hotel and we agreed to meet the husbands (and Gracie) at the restaurant for supper. Once I had my cell phone plugged in and charging I realized I had a message from my sister. I had called her on the way to Halifax that morning to ask her to feed the cat, since we had left in such a rush that morning and forgot to feed him. "Hi, it's me. Just wanted to let you know that I found a suitcase sitting in your driveway. I put it inside the house. I'm not sure if that was the suitcase you were supposed to take with you or not this morning, but it's inside now. Okay, bye." The suitcase was outside? How in the heck did Danny manage to get it downstairs and out the doors before leaving it behind? How do you carry a suitcase outside and then just forget to carry it the rest of the way to the car?? I asked him that exact thing over supper, and he laughed. He has no recollection of moving the suitcase past the stairs in our house. Oh well! We both have a sense of humour and everything worked out, regardless!
Supper was delicious, the girls got to go swimming and we settled them into bed. Gracie was exhausted, and Ella... was not. She talked, and talked, and talked, and I could hear her rolling around and laughing and talking. I went in at least 10 times before I decided to pull her out of the bed she was sharing with Gracie, put her in our bed, and let poor Gracie fall asleep (who did, in less than 2 minutes). Ella finally got tired enough to stop laughing and talking, and I finally heard her fall asleep around 9:45, a full almost 3 hours after bedtime. Danny and I went to bed at midnight, and at 1:55, Ella woke up. She was quite excited to see us in the bed next to hers. She also woke Gracie up. I threw Gracie in bed with Danny and I crawled in with Ella. Ella moved up. And down. And up. And down. And around. Then left. Then right. That freaking kid moved the entire rest of the night. Unless my hand was laying on her back, she moved and rolled and wiggled and shimmied. I did not sleep at all. She seemed quite well rested however, when she finally got up at 7:30. How in the hell can you sleep so well if you spend the entire night in motion?!?!
The Backyardigans show was a huge hit, especially once Gracie realized we weren't watching a TV show and they were there "for real." She spent a good portion of the show trying to convince me that Austin and Tyrone should come back to her place to play. She also asked if she could go and talk to them after the show was over. I said she couldn't, and she said, "But mom, they came all this way!"
The ride home was uneventful (thank God!), except for the vibrating car and the motion-sickness it seemed to produce in me. We got in the house at 6:20 and I accidentally bumped Gracie on the stairs. She immediately fell to the ground and started bawling. When she settled down from that crying fit, she suddenly started crying again. When I asked her what was wrong, she said she coughed. Okay. We got upstairs and I asked her to put her pajamas on. She laid on the floor and cried. Somebody was tired! Not that I blame her! She fell asleep in minutes, and now it's my turn to get ready for bed. I could cry too, thinking about having to shower and pick out clothes for tomorrow. Family fun weekends, though fun, are exhausting. Especially when you do them the way we do, which is totally f'd up!!
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