Trip to Ohio: Part 1

As Mommy B and I have eluded to in our recent posts, our trip back to the O-H was quite a journey. Let me start off by saying that this trip was going to be the most time I've taken off work since Mommy B and I went to Maui over a year ago when we found out we were pregnant with Alli. I didn't even take this much time off when she was born... if that gives you an idea of how much work I don't miss. In other words, Mommy B and I were really looking forward to this trip as being an adventure but also hopefully relaxing. There were plenty of family and friends who wanted to spend time with Alli that we thought we'd get some time to ourselves - maybe even be able to go out to dinner once by ourselves. Well, let the fun begin...

We decided to roll the dice and leave Charleston at 4pm on Thursday, May 26th. Knowing full well that it was going to take 9-10 hours to get to Cincinnati, we were banking on the thought that Alli would just fall asleep when she normally does and let us drive in peace (with Scarlett) as co-pilot. I started things off and got us to North Carolina just in time for Mommy B to take over and drive through the mountains in the pouring down rain. After a couple hours of pretending to be a submarine, we switched again so I could get us the rest of the way through Tennessee and Kentucky in the darkness.

With little Ru (and Scarlett) passed out just as we had hoped, I channeled my inner Mama G and put the pedal down to get us into Cincinnati as quickly as possible. With the clock striking 12:30am, we were just about an hour away from Cinci when Alli decided to wake herself up... and she she did so by throwing up a few ounces of formula she had been digesting for the last 5 hours. All down her front, on the buckle of her carrier, and into the lining of her carrier. Awesome.

Being so close to our destination, we didn't want to stop and waste more time trying to clean things up with fast-food napkins. I asked Mommy B if she wanted me to pull over, and she said no and to just keep going. She then swallowed hard and did something only a mother (and nurse) could do... she unbuckled Alli and held her to her chest and rocked her back to sleep. And that's how they spent the next hour until we reached my parent's house - chest-to-chest, glued together by formula-vomit. God I love that woman. We reached their house at about 1:30am and my mom was able to help us get things cleaned up a bit. Gotta love starting a load of laundry at 2am...

My mom was able to somehow pull out the crib I had as a baby, and put it in my bedroom so Alli would be near us. Just a note, Alli has never EVER slept in the same room as us, even the night we brought her home from the hospital. So not only was my child sleeping in the same crib that I had as a baby (which was kind of weird), she was now doing so about 4 feet away from our heads.

We were able to get about 4 hours of sleep before Alli woke up at her normal time. Apparently the midnight-vomiting episode didn't disturb her sleep pattern all that much. My mom volunteered to get up with Alli to play with her for a bit - which enabled Mommy B and I to get a little more much-needed sleep. Given that I had been up for about 20 straight hours and had driven over 600 miles, I was willing to take anything I could get.

There were a few things we wanted to do in Cincinnati on Friday, so we got up and headed across town. Mommy B dropped off her engagement ring and wedding band at the jeweler I bought them from so they could be professionally cleaned and re-dipped while we were in Ohio. We then stopped off at a car dealership to test-drive a new car for Mommy B. Alli was starting to get a little cranky towards the tail end of the afternoon, so we hurried home to get her afternoon nap in. She got her nap and we hung out at the house the rest of the afternoon/evening.

After a big-girl bath, Alli went to bed around her normal time of 7-8pm - which Mommy B and I took as a good sign that the driving hadn't screwed up her sleeping schedule too much. We were awoken at about midnight to screams that I hadn't heard in a while...