We were scheduled to depart first thing Friday morning and to arrive back home Monday evening. Well let's just say that the person who coined the word 'vacation' or the term 'family vacation' was seriously mistaken. The definition of the word 'vacation' is a period of rest and freedom from work, study, etc. Well this trip definitely was not a vacation for me but I have to admit that it was also anything but uneventful.
It all began Wednesday night. Alyssa was up all that night vomiting. For 8 1/2 hours straight the poor child was in the bathroom at least once an hour with her head hanging over the toilet. By Thursday afternoon she seemed to be fine, then we had a little more Thursday evening and by that night she seemed to have been better. Of course this led us to believe that perhaps she'd just eaten something that didn't agree with her tummy and agreed that as long as she did well throughout the night Thursday we would still catch our morning flight and take our long weekend.
Friday morning arrived without any more incidents so we eagerly awoke and started our journey. Our flight itinerary was pretty simple. We were to depart from Dallas Love Field at 7:20am, arrive in New Orleans by 8:35a where we would pick up our rental car and drive the remaining 3 hours to Pensacola, FL. Simple enough, right? Not at all. Getting to the airport in Dallas and getting on board our flight was very simple, however this was the first time ever that Alyssa, Cayden and I had flown. Anticipation and excitement were definitely in the air. As we boarded we knew we'd have to divide up seat wise, so Michael chose to sit with both Alyssa and Dalton while I got to share with Cayden and a nice gentleman from Allen, TX. As the flight took off I was fine, a little stressed (who wouldn't be traveling with a family of 5) and a little excited. Luckily for me the gentleman in the seat with us was friendly and extremely patient with Cayden. For you see, at only 3 years of age Cayden is still having a lot of difficulty learning what personal space is and is very hands on all of the time. I swear by the end of our flight the poor guy next to us probably felt as if being patted down in security was less invasive. Cayden was excited and could not keep still. He continuously had his hands on this poor mans leg and arm; hands reaching up to touch the mans hair and face; and asked him questions about everything. I of course kept apologizing and reminding Cayden to keep his hands to himself but a lot of good it did. As I said though, the gentleman was very understanding. As it turned out he was traveling with his family to Orlando, FL for the weekend and his wife is an elementary school P.E. teacher so he knows about small children and their lack of personal boundaries.
Well as the flight continued everyone seemed to be doing fine except for me. As it turns out I get motion sickness. What a huge surprise for me. Never before have I ever gotten sick because something was moving but this flight actually made me so nauseated that I quickly decided flying is not for me. And to make it worse I was next to the window and every time I glanced out it got worse. So lesson learned was that one hour trapped on a plane with all of those people, not being able to get up without asking someone to move, and having a crazy kid next to me is not an ideal way to travel.
Finally we arrived in New Orleans, collected our luggage, hopped on a shuttle to Enterprise, picked up the rental car and we were on the road. The drive over to Pensacola, I have to admit, went very smoothly. As I drove I felt better; the kids while a little squashed together were pretty much content; and there were no delays. By about 1pm we were in Florida and settling into our rooms at my father's house.
The rest of the evening went along smoothly. The kids spent the afternoon out in the backyard feeding the fish and playing baseball. We had a nice dinner and were able to do some catching up. Our plans for Saturday were to go to the Naval Aviation Museum and attend a fish fry at a neighbors house. It sounded like it was going to be a wonderful weekend. Then it happened.....Cayden vomited!
Friday night was spent with Cayden and I in one of the bedrooms, sitting up in the bed, and the poor baby hanging his head into a garbage can. What we'd thought was just some bad food with Alyssa was now a realization that it was a virus. The poor baby was up at least every hour sick and inevitably spent the night wrapped in towels since he'd soiled all of the bedding, tons of clothes, the pillows, and a load of towels. By 4am Saturday morning he seemed to finally be finished and was able to fall asleep.
Saturday morning rolled around and after letting Cayden sleep in for the morning and making sure that he was up to the trip we decided to pile into "Paw-Paw's" truck and head on out to the Naval Aviation Museum. The kids loved it last time we visited plus Michael and Dalton had never been before. So with breakfast successfully stored in our bellies we embarked on our day at the museum.
Now I would love to tell you that our day at the museum was fun and that we had no incidents of any kind, however if I did so I would be lying. Besides, where would the comedy and fun in it be if nothing had happened? As it was, we were pulling into the parking lot when Cayden suddenly spewed all over himself, his car seat, and the seat in front of him. Luckily for Dalton, Cayden was sitting lower than he and it didn't make it to the back of Dalton's head or neck. Now I'm not joking people, it was like sitting next to the kid in the Exorcist. That stuff just came flying out without warning! Once we'd parked we quickly pulled Cayden out of the truck, wiped him down with baby wipes, changed his clothes and cleaned up the truck. Luckily for the truck we'd thought to bring a can with a plastic bag in it just in case. Of course I then spent the rest of the time in the museum watching him carefully and plotting my routes to the various restrooms in the case that he may explode again. In addition to Cayden's spewing, I myself was not feeling well but was attributing it to a lack of sleep and pushed on throughout the day.
After the museum we headed back to the house. We still had plans for a fish fry with the neighbors and we were all scared to do anything prolonged with the "Amazing Vomiting Cayden". Once back at the house the kids seemed to all be feeling perfectly well and were running around playing while I myself was slowly but surely starting to decline. By about 4pm I found myself in bed, extremely nauseated, and shivering. The rest of the family headed over to the fish fry and as I am told had a wonderful evening eating and socializing. Unfortunately, I had to miss the festivities and because of that there sadly are no pictures. I was told though that my children apparently made some wonderful and ever lasting impressions on the neighbors and their other guests and two of the funniest moments of the night came from Cayden. Apparently at one point the child was stealing cans of Miller Lite out of the ice chest and trying to get any and everyone to open them for him. Then at another point in time he approached the neighbor and requested that she wash his jacket for him because it was full of germs from his Daddy. LOL
Now again, I would love to say that the rest of our time there was relaxing and that things turned around for the better and we were able to get out and do some wonderful and amazing things, but again I would be lying and there would be no entertainment in that. Instead, we ended up spending Saturday night with Alyssa and I both sick, shivering and running for the bathroom.
Sunday was pretty uneventful. We were scared to give Cayden too much of anything for fear that he would relapse, Alyssa wouldn't eat a thing because she was scared of getting sick again and I still couldn't eat anything because my stomach hurt so much. Then to top it off my father was smoking a huge pork loin for us all to have for dinner that night. With Sunday being our last day there and there being a chance of rain in the forecast we resigned to just hanging around the house and taking it easy. So as I did laundry and Dad kept a watchful eye on his pork loins we decided to let the kids have their pack of Crayola Window Colors and turned them loose on the back door.
These things are awesome! I was first introduced to them last week while at a friend's home. She had a pack of the Crayola Window Markers for her kids and they all just seemed to love being able to draw on the windows and other glass objects with them. So I picked up a pack of the colors during one of my trips to Wal-Mart before we left for vacation. What happens when you give kids crayons and tell them it's okay to write on the windows? Everyone has fun!
The remainder of Sunday went off without a hitch. No one got sick, everyone was feeling good and we'd managed to spend the day relaxing just a little bit. Even on Sunday night everyone was finally able to sleep.
With Monday upon us it was time to pack our things and return to Dallas. We began our morning with packing our suitcases and loading them into the cars then I made a clean sweep through the house to ensure that we hadn't forgotten or misplaced anything. I also wanted to be sure that we left things in the order that we had found them. For heaven's sake, I did spend my weekend cleaning up vomit and doing laundry. By about 10:30am we finally said good-bye and set out towards New Orleans. This time however, it was Michael and Dalton whom were both complaining of upset stomachs.
The drive from Florida across Alabama and Mississippi went pretty well. We were in Louisiana nearing the I-10/610 split when it happened again.....Cayden spewed. This time there was no can for us to grab and thrust under his face, just a plastic shopping bag. Poor Dalton did his best to catch what was coming out and begrudgingly, while gagging himself, cleaned up what had gotten onto Cayden and the car seat. About 10 minutes after that it happened again. Of course I felt sorry for Cayden but while listening to the panic and disgust in the voice of Dalton as he attempted to help really made me glad that I was the one driving and not sitting in the back seat.
Finally we arrived at the car rental center about 2pm and again were in the parking lot cleaning up Cayden and his "mess". We then took a shuttle over to the airport, checked in, made it through security and waited for our flight. During which Cayden had continued to vomit throughout it all. As the time for our flight neared Cayden finally started to slow down and wanted to do nothing more than sleep. Deciding that I didn't want to have to deal with a sick child while dealing with motion sickness on the flight I took an over-the-counter motion sickness medication keeping in mind that both Michael and Dalton too were feeling under the weather.
After about a 30 minute delay thanks to the weather that was happening in Dallas our plane finally arrived and we boarded. Being conscious of our situation we decided that it would be best for us to take seats in the rear of the plane, closest to the restrooms and kept our fingers crossed that the flight would be over with quickly and without incident. I am happy to announce that it did. Cayden ended up sleeping through the entire flight. I was able to sit and read without the feeling of nausea. Alyssa once again had a window seat and was able to watch everything as we flew by and Dalton and Michael had aisle seats.....just in case.
Back in Dallas we were met by cooler temperatures and an airport riddled with security. Not really sure what was going on but they had many of the entrances covered and were directing traffic. Perhaps it had something to do with the Super Bowl. And once home were faced with yet another obstacle. Apparently while we were gone our cat decided that he no longer liked using his litter box and had happily defecated on the floor through out the house. I am thankful that we remembered and decided to close all of our bedroom doors before we left. With that mess cleaned dinner finally done and everyone exhausted from our "family vacation" we decided to call it an early night.
This morning, karma had finally come through for us and to our surprise we awoke to a blanket of white ice covering everything outside; temperatures of about 20 with a windchill of 0; and all schools being cancelled. According to the news this is going to be around for the rest of the week and even now as I type there is a small amount of tiny snow flurries that continue to fall.
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