Weekend Warriors

A quick (or perhaps not quick at all) recap from the events that surround the Clinton family:

This past weekend, my little family journeyed over to Northern Indiana for my aunt's wedding.  We were a bit rushed due to some junky mapquest directions that were blatantly wrong.  We had a mere 10 minutes to get changed at the hotel before we had to run to car and drive like mad just to rush into the church before the bride.  I was a little nervous about having two ants-in-their-pants kids in church during a wedding.  They seated us at the front with the family and I just prayed it would all come out smoothly.  And it did, in a matter of speaking.

Mark was feeding Marina a bottle in order to keep her from yelling and making all her baby sounds during the ceremony.  We were all still standing after the bride walked in and the pastor immediately went into the vows.  After the first "I do" there was a moment of silence during which Marina let out the loudest fart ever.  Everyone around heard it and we were all trying to silently laugh without disturbing the peace.  The ceremony continued on.  The wedding couple went over to light the unity candle and we observed in silence until BAM, there it was again.  Marina dropped another bomb.  I told Mark he better sit down with her since her sounds were trumpeting all over the church.  I'm pretty sure farting in church might be a sin.

Later, at the reception, Eli turned into a dancing machine.  During every song that played he wanted to run out to the dance floor and groove like he was getting paid for it.  He wouldn't allow anyone to dance with him; this was a solo act and he didn't care how many people he ran into.  He even wanted to be out there during the father-daughter dance.  He danced until he got a stitch in his side and I pulled him from the floor for fear that he would puke his dinner all over the many guests.

Back at the hotel, night fell and Marina decided she only wanted to sleep in the hotel crib (which looks like something from a mental institution) for two hours and then she wanted to scream so the people in the adjoining room would be made aware of her presence (though I hardly felt bad since their brats were running and screaming in the halls when I was trying to fall asleep).  While I was trying to get Marina to rest, I had to sit in the darkness and blindly feel around for the fast food I was eating as my late night snack.  In the morning, I found french fries in my bed, next to Marina who had screamed until I gave in and let her accompany me there. 

When the morning finally came, my rumpled family marched downstairs to the complimentary breakfast.  Eli was eating his yogurt when he got a funny look on his face.  Mark took him to the bathroom.  When they came back, Eli announced very loudly that he thought he was going to throw up but then a huge burp came out.  People like to hear such news when they are enjoying their breakfast.  He seemed better for a few minutes but then started acting oddly again.  We thought it best to hustle back up to our room where we sat and waited to see if Eli was going to be sick. After about an hour, we needed to get in the car and drive the 3-1/2 hours to get home.  Armed with the liner from the ice bucket, we marched out to our car and prayed that we would have an uneventful ride. The last thing you want on a road trip is a puke fountain coming from your back seat.

I think I have mentioned in the past that I have a certain amount of anxiety about vomit.  If I think someone is going to puke, I start sweating and panicking about it.  I can't relax.  As I was driving, it wasn't convenient for me to keep turning back and looking at Eli as he watched his movie, just to check for signs of illness, but I tried it anyway.  As I drove on, the weather outside looked menacing and I could tell that about a 1/2 mile up the road it was raining.  Seconds later, there was a drip, drip drip, then whoosh!  Down came an extreme downpour.  I couldn't see the lines on the road or any of the other cars driving a few feet from me.  Our windshield wipers (that were falling apart) were going full blast and I was in full concentration mode.  I tend to get overwhelmed when too much is happening at once.  As I was trying to focus on not killing everyone, Eli start demanding "Drive faster!  Drive faster!" over and over.  It was too much.  I felt like it was a movie, all that was missing was someone sitting behind me pulling my hair and covering my eyes.  The blinding rain continued for more than ten minutes (or an hour in my mind) and then finally we were safe.  Afterward, I realized that it was a nice (or not so nice) little distraction from my obsessive worry about getting hit with puke from behind.  With an hour left in our trip, Eli even got his color back and all was right with the world again.  Screaming Mimi (aka Marina) even had a pretty good road trip, that is after we realized she was starving and gave her a bottle. Oops.

Next week we travel on an airplane to Utah.  I am a little uneasy about the plane ride since Marina can't sit still for 5 minutes straight and Eli is always getting sick at very inconvenient times.  Good thing I never stress out about anything.  But at least there is no shortage of material for my blog.  There I go again, always being so stinking positive.  I should make t-shirts.