hitting the road

The highlights of our trip:

1. Not one hour into the trip, I gave Annabelle her apple juice, momentarily forgetting that although sitting forward seems to have solved her car sickness problem in general, we were going through a twisty canyon. Vomit ensued. Somehow, she mostly got it on just her clothes (not her chair or the car), and when I saw it coming (she's a regular thrower upper, you get to know the signs), I grabbed a plastic bag and caught the bulk. (Motherhood has some really glorious moments.) And I'd brought a whole pack of wet wipes with which to "clean" up messes like this. Total joke. Yes, we drove around with barf saturated clothes in our car for two days.
2. Maybe one hour later, forgetting that this girl is rapidly growing out of her size 6 (SIZE 6!) diapers (and really not understanding the concept of peeing in a toilet), she peed out of her diaper. Yes, she sat in a barf and pee soaked chair for two days. (Sometimes childhood has glorious moments as well.)
3. I drank very little while driving to avoid bathroom stops. (Not that it really helped - I peed in every port-a-john from here to Timbuktu.) It turned out to be a really stupid move because I swelled like a balloon. Feet were melons. So uncomfortable. I remember as we neared Salt Lake and I could literally feel my feet growing, in my very sleepy mind I thought, "What if my feet never go back to normal?" Thankfully, after much guzzling as soon as I got home and all day Sunday, the water retention has left the building. For now. I'm sure in the last weeks I'll blow up, just like I did with Belle. Then spend weeks sweating it out. It's pretty ridiculous.
4. When I went to visit my mom a week ago, I learned that Belle will not sleep anywhere unfamiliar unless she can touch me. (She's learning to fear things - dark, strangers, cars.) So on this trip, she slept in between us on our cardboard queen bed. Jess says he really did sleep through her all night kicks and jabs and little mutterings in her sleep. I, on the other hand, did not. (Sidenote: she generally does not sleep in our bed. Although Jess loves to snuggle her and wouldn't mind I'm sure, I'm all about establishing sleeping independence. Oh, and I really like my own sleep. When she was super tiny - weeks old - I think I let her sleep in our bed a few times. But for the most part, she sleeps in her own bed, and she knows it.)
5. We started home and stopped to get some fuel just outside of Arches National Park. It was outrageous at $3.89 a gallon, so we just got a few gallons figuring we could make it to Price. When we hit the milepost sign that read PRICE 60, the gas light turned on. We continued on for about 15 miles debating the amount of "oh crap" gas a RAV4 carries with it before the needle dropped below empty and we turned around, praying we'd make it back to Green River. We did, thank heavens. Literally, I thanked the heavens. I was not looking forward to sitting (pregnant and swollen) in a car with a cranky toddler while Jess walked twenty miles to town. Oh the hysterics that would've surely ensued. (On my end.)

With all that, however, it was actually a  really good trip. Jess' heart belongs to our country's national park system, and I think his little curly-haired babe is following right behind in his footsteps. The biggest reason I go on these trips (even when I swell up and get sick and don't sleep and wear barf all day) is I know that my girl will love it. When Jess gets through his many photos of the actual scenery, I'll post some. Until then, a few (read: many) of the reasons we go - for our Belle to see new things. On the way home, after a few hours in the car, Belle said, "Big rocks? Get out? Play?" And here she is playing in "big rocks" and "big sand" (as she called them) and getting as dirty as her little heart can handle.

 

 Oh, hey. I'm just A TEENAGER. She looks so old!

 Yes, that is a pregnant me. Don't get used to seeing that around here much. :)

 Check out how she's growing out of that backpack by comparing here.