Wagon's West

A Cross Country Caravan

OH. MY. SWEET. LORD. I NEVER want to get in that damn van AGAIN!!! NO NO NO you CAN'T make me!!! Wwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Yeah that's just ME talking!!! I have to see if I can figure out how to upload the 'voice note' of ALL 3 of them SCREAMING, whining and crying the entire last hour of the trip. Yes, it's as nerve inducing, patience stripping and frustration enhancing as it gets. Honestly if someone were to offer me a million dollars cash and all I had to do to get it was turn my van around and drive back to Georgia, I'd say 'Keep your damn money!" Ha, I normally try NOT to just bitch and commplain on my blog, cause honestly who wants to hear/read that, but this is on the TIP TOP of the WORST things I have EVER had to endure!! This was MORE stressful then my son having Open Heart Surgery, NO JOKE, it was THAT bad!!! And I am not talking about the whole process, the find out you are moving & actually move in less then 1 month I am simply referring to the damn cross country drive. The amazing thing about our God is that he created us in a way that our minds 'remove the bad' from our memory, so before my entire memory of this awful day gets erased, I will attempt to jot it down, but surely there are already entire hours that have been relocated to chapter 13!

Start At The Beginning

SO, what would be a story about a cross country move without mentioning the 'moving' aspect of this process. One of my girlfriends in the neighborhood has a 'worker', Esteban, who frequently comes to help her do odd jobs everything from yard work, to cleaning gutters and helping to clean out the garage or basement, so she gave me his number to contact to see if he would be available to help us load up our U-HAUL, YES we did this move ourselves, I'm thinking that will need to be it's own post ~ Anyway as luck would have it Esteban was available to help and had two friends 'Tequila' and 'Silent Joe' who were also available to help out as well. **SIDE NOTE: This move was a 'family' affair, my Dad flew in to help us pack and agreed to do the drive and unpack in Texas - God willing he forgives me before the end of the century, and Mom took off Friday to help watch the boys at her house so they wouldn't be in the way of the workers.** So Friday morning BRIGHT and early after sending Mom off with the boys, dropping Dax at Vickie's, Dad and I headed off to Downtown Canton to retrieve our helpers. As you can imagine with some language barriers we got a bit turned around on the directions to get our guys, so at times I spoke what Spanish I could to help during the day, it WAS my minor after all, back in that 'other' life I used to lead. So we get home and spend ALL DAY Friday packing what odds & ends are left laying around the house while the guys and Dave are carrying and loading/packing EVERY ounce of available space of the truck. When we took a break for lunch Dave decided that we needed an additional pull behind trailer - well DUH, and had we not all been exhausted we might have recognized at that point that we should just rent a whole other truck - but we didn't so trailer it is. Dave also decided that at $30/hr for the workers we didn't need to pay them to hang out while we drove to pick up & return with the trailer. So Dad & I set off to return our guys from whence they came.

Dave my overly optimistic aka under-estimator, thought that with the addition of the 3 guys plus me & Dad that we would be 'on the road' by noon. . . .. yeah by 3:30 or so we were at the 'if it doesn't fit drag it towards the garage and we'll order a PackRat to be delivered later in the week for all that remains and let's start cleaning now' mentality. By 5:00 we were in the 'screw it, let's just hit the road! and we'll hire the 3 guys to come back when the unit gets delivered and they can carry and load everything then' persuasion, after all I do have Esteban's number.

Our Grand Send Off

Yeah I have NO idea what I thought it was going to be like, but I certainly envisioned those long last looks at the boy's rooms, and maybe even a few snapped pictures, some tears and hugs in each room as we laughed and reminisced about all that had transpired in each room over the past 5 years, all through a soft filter with evening light pounring in - you know VERY movie'esque think 'Father of the Bride' and as much as possible a sort of 'good bye house & thanks for everything' moment alone in a clean quiet house. Um Yeah, in true KIRK form, that is the FURTHEST thing from what actually happened as you can get!! It's sorta sad really, but our 'send off' was the three of us, myself, Dave & my Dad, feebly attempting to shove remaining critical odds & ends (no joke there was no less than ten boxes actually lableled this when we were in shove mode) into any remaining space in the vehicles. AND since the U-HAUL which was being driven by Dave and also carrying the 2 cats and Trooper, was now pulling the trailer, my Dad was recruited to drive Foxxy, my VW across country, which had couch cushions and TVs & computers so that left me, alone, in Minnie, my new awesome van aka HELL on WHEELS as it would affectionately be known once arriving in Texas with - you guessed it ALL THREE BOYS!!! Alone, in ONE van with the 3 kids, well actually 2 kids and one breastfeeding baby and just a mere thousand miles to go!!!!!!

So with those dynamics laid out before us, we collectively decided that our best bet would be to hit the road ASAP to at least get some miles under our tires, then stop for the night and resume the trip in the morning after restful evening in a hotel and showers and food and. . . . . again, keep in mind we ARE the Kirks so you have to leave room for the unexpected..... and since we knew we wanted to make it to at least Birmingham which from Canton is about three and a half hours away there was fortunately/unfortunately NO time to grieve our good byes. My Mom was there helping to load the boys in Minnie and she had Saved the day by suggesting 'dry ice' for my stockpile of breastmilk - which I am HAPPY no ECSTATIC to report made the trip just fine - so she was giving each boy a small goody bag she had packed for them, and hugs (which my only regret was that I didn't get to hug her longer although when you are literally about to leave for an undetermined amount of time and don't have a 'we have to go now' attitude I am not sure you would ever stop giving that hug) and waves Dad & I off as she stays at the house with Dave to go over what to do with all the remaining stuff. And there was quite a bit of it, namely our bedroom furniture. . . . we'll get to that later as well.

Get Our Motors Running

So Dad & I were headed out, leaving for Birmingham probably around 5:30ish or there abouts. We decided to 'fuel up' at Chik-fil-a as we were headed towards the highway, 1. cause that is a NO brainer with #1 & #2 PLUS I wasn't so sure that my beloved CFA was out in Texas so in the chance that this was my last chance for the delicious chicken sandwich we pulled through grabbed our grub and hit 575 - Wagon's West with deadlines to keep and Robert Frost running through my head "And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep."

"WHAT?! Are these pressing deadlines you speak of Katie?" is probably the question you are asking, well I'll tell ya - we had to get the keys for the house, since we were just approved that morning there obviously wasn't time to send us the keys and someone had to pick them up from the real estate office before 1:00 closing time AND Dave's first day of work is Monday (June 11 - as in ONE month exactly from his May 11 interview), YES as in two and a half days from now (this point in the story 'now' you know Friday the 8th of June) Monday, also there is the U-HAUL, which has to be returned AND my Dad's return flight to Minnesota the following Sunday - yes my Dad, thank GOD, took an entire week once we got to Texas to help me settle in, cause as you can guess with 3 boys and a hubs at work not much would get done by me alone. And while mentioning the return flight you have NO IDEA how much stress that caused!~!! I can NOT remember if I mentioned it in my previous post but my Dad booked his flight on 'a wing and a prayer' that we would actually have a house to move us into - we didn't get word that we 'got the house' until the damn U-HAUL truck was in the driveway, so I was more than a bit worried about how we were going to get him out to DFW to catch his flight OR pay the difference to have him fly home from ATL - luckily my Dad is extremely laid back about that stuff so he wasn't worried with it and was very 'Go With The Flow' about this whole process!! THANKS AGAIN DAD!!!

Let me set this scene, Dad and I are enroute to a yet undetermine hotel in Alabama that's on 20 West, as I sit in the pick up line at CFA I send Cat a text, she is my dear friend who also has uncanny internet searching skills - seriously she is gifted (ha, in more ways than one!!) but yeah - you need it she can track it down - so I ask errr more like BEG her to see if she can find a hotel along 20 near Birmingham that allows Dogs - no we didn't mention the cats we were gonna just sneak them in, I know I know, such a bad example to set for the kids, but they wouldn't know about the 'sneak in' part which in my mind what they don't know won't hurt them - and DON'T look at me with those Judgey McJudgey eyes, like there aren't little 'secrets' YOU keep from the kiddos (Ho Ho Ho. . . . I digress) SO she finds me options which I forward to Dave who is still at the house going over the stuff with Mom and he says once he has one nailed down he'll let me know where to go, but for now to just stay on course of 20 West - got it, I can do that. See when stress sets in and robs your brain of those lovely functions that it performs without any intervention and which NORMALLY allows you to multitask like a MUG, well when that's gone single step instructions and living in the moment becomes very easy in fact more than easy they become essential!! Cause much like a computer that has NO memory space left shows the blue screen of death then crashes so too would I if I attempted to actually 'think' about anything other than the IMMEDIATE task at hand. Yeah I know it sounds dramatic, and some of you who actually know about stress and technical terms I am sure I was in some clinical state but as it was I was just coping the best way I knew, which was with forward progress and taking care of the boys. Two things I know well.

Once we were about 30 miles outside of Birmingham Dave found a hotel that still had 2 rooms available and offered breakfast, apparently there was little league baseball, youth soccer tournament plus a car show in town which meant just about EVERY hotel was booked solid, so beggers can't be choosers and at this point we were SO TIRED, SO DIRTY, SO READY to do nothing for a few hours that a dark alley and cardboard box may have offered comfort. Dad and I of course made it there first, although NOT with nearly as much 'spare time' as one would think. In what should have been about 3.5 hours turned into closer to 4.5 - there were LOTS of stops - and so it would go the next day as well, but I didn't know that at the time. FIRST there was dinner, which meant that a bathroom break about an hour later so we were in downtown Atlanta area looking for a stopping place when Dax lost his paci & was LOSING it and Kaiden couldn't find it in the car seat AND there was Friday night traffic and my nerves were shot and blood pressure quickly rising so we had to immediately pull off the highway and whip into the first parking lot so I could get out and find the missing paci & get some semblence of peace going in the car for a minute. Then we resumed our look for a bathroom. So within 15-20 minutes of the 'unscheduled' find the paci stop we stopped again to let Kaiden, Dad & I got to the restroom. We loaded back in our vehicles - Me in my 'life sentence' van & Dad into the blissful quiet of Foxxy & headed off, you guessed it, 20 West. No less than 30 minutes or so further on our journey Dax wakes up, you guessed it, he was hungry, so since we were just a few miles from the state line & there for the welcome/rest area I decided that would be where we would go so that Dad & the boys could go on an adventure while I fed the baby. Sounds great right!? Yeah, it didn't happen. As luck would have it Dad got boxed in by 18 wheeler and a big truck and couldn't switch lanes to get into the rest center so as we were pulling in the boys watched Grampa Dave keep speeding off down the highway which as you could guess didn't make them too happy. AND as a cruel cruel joke, we had to drive past all these green lush lawns, playgrounds, picnic tables and airconditioned rest rooms to get to the exit. About this time Dad calls my cell and says "SO I didn't make it off I'll wait for you at the next exit" to which I replied something like ''Oh Hell No! I am not staying here by myself with two crying boys while I attempt to feed the baby we'll come find you" Having just left the paradise that was the rest center we weren't sure what our options would be but of the few mantras/motos we had on our journey our 'no going back now' one was what kept us from turning around and returning to the rest center. Since Dad did have a jump start on us he 'scouted' our best options and calls to say - brace yourself - he found an abandoned fireworks warehouse that had enough space in the chained off drive for our two cars to park so I could feed the baby. What a GLAMOROUS life I live!! And in deed, there was just enough room for our two vehicles, I retrieve Dax from his seat and settle in the front to feed him and Dad & the two boys set off for a 'nature' hike - having been on a few of Dad's nature hikes in my life I can only imagine what wonders they'll find. The GOOD NEWS is that at this point Dax is a champion eater so in the time it took for the fellas to hike across the parking lot, up behind the warehouse and emerge on the other side, about 15 minutes in total, Dax was done eating and getting his diaper changed. I tooted the horn, they headed back to the cars, we changed Pierce's diaper and set back off on our wayward, westward adventure. AND not one second too soon either, I am guessing the owner of said abandoned warehouse had security alert him that there were 'trespassers' on his property and he was pulling alongside us to tell us to MOVE ON - yikes!!! Dax sleeping, the other two somewhat happy in the new van we headed towards the hotel, which we weren't exactly sure yet which one we would stay in but had faith in Dave to book one. We drove about another hour then had to stop for gas and decided to get potty breaks and snacks all taken care of in this one stop with the hopes of finishing the remainder of our trip before having to stop again.

It was about 9:30pm (central time) by the time we made it to the hotel - and as expected the parking lot was packed cause as we were informed they were one room away from being at full capacity. I called Dave to tell him the bad news that these were NOT enter from the outside rooms, as he had hoped, but rather they had just renovated this hotel and all occupants had to go past the front desk to get to the elevator which meant 'sneaking' an 80 pound lab plus 2 meowing cats in was impossible!! So it was at this point that he decided he didn't want to stop for the night anyway cause with a fully loaded down U-HAUL & trailer he couldn't drive that fast anyway and he needed to keep making his way west so that he could get those keys before we were locked out till Monday. KEEP MOVING FORWARD. So Dad and I checked in, took the boys & gear to one room - which became known as my room - and I made the trip back downstairs and outside to retrieve the essentials like pillows, loveys and drinks & snacks. Dad stayed with the boys in the room and gave them a little treat and gift he had originally thought he would be passing out en route back when we thought he would be riding in the same car and well you know how that turned out. AND while on the subject of arriving at the hotel - those of you with kids who have ever stayed in a hotel will know where I am going with this..... but those kids, who just minutes prior were all but begging to get out of their seats and lay down to sleep, went buck wild once IN the hotel room. I was numb from the brain down due to that day (and the previous three and a half weeks) events so I can't say with any real certainty who 'had it worse':

ME: making trip after trip up and down to the car to get all the necessities to face a night in a hotel alone - well NOT alone ALONE - but on my own with the 3 boys alone.

DAD: who was currently stuck in the room with the hyperactive zombie children and shattered ear drums & patience or

DAVE: pulling a cross country all nighter with the 2 cats & Trooper. They sort of all seem equally awful right!?

What About The Hubs?!

Since Dave wasn't going to actually spend the night he decided he would just pop into the hotel, take a shower, grab drinks out of the cooler give kisses then hit the road again. And as it happened he pulled in as I was out in the lot making one of about 10 of my trips. So as he parked I ran the gear I had grabbed in, got the other room key & left Dad to bathe & jammie the boys while I ran the key to Dave so he could go shower in the other room and I tended to the animals needs. I WISH I had snapped a picture of the motley crew, but I'll do my best to reiterate it, Flik the orange tabby was stretched completely across the top of the dash, cool as a cucumber watching out the passenger window, Autumn was hidden under the seat in the cat carrier box panting from stress & exhaustion from reported nonstop yowling and Trooper precariously perched half on the bench, half on the catbox and a bathmat covering a dog pillow. They were a sight! I think it was about this very moment in time that I first thought no joke we are ONE damn big top tent away from a three ringed circus!! HAHAHAHA & UGH!

Dave came out a new man, well at least smelling like a new man, like I said we were pretty grimy from our day of packing then jumping in the cars to head west. I helped direct him as he backed 'that thing' up and gave him a fare well kiss and then after waving my furry family members & hubs off I got to return to the room to relieve Dad before his gasket blew and he wound up calling the whole thing off! To my sheer delight, the boys were in their PJs, Dad had poured me a rum & diet coke and was ready to retire to his room with what remained in the bottles and we told him we would see him in the morning. He looked more than happy to say good night and we shut the door.

Sweet Sleep. . . .

Well, sort of... you parents out there you know what I am getting at. NOTHING is EVER as simple as what is should seem to be when kiddos are involved! SO the door shuts, I lock EVERY lock, not so much because I worry about anyone breaking in - are you kidding me who the hell runs towards a screaming hurricane!? But rather because my little lovelies know how to turn deadbolts and thus sprint from the room and NEVER do they split and go the same direction which absolutely leaves a mom in quite a predicament - do I leave the sleeping baby in the room and chase the kids - go back in wake the baby and risk losing sight of one of the other two OR do that scream whisper coupled with the 'mom look' which if done right generally stops them in their tracks. Yeah, I went option 3 and they came back - but that was earlier in the evening. At this point we were nearing the daily finish line.

OF COURSE they can't sleep together!? What was I smoking?! In fact I am thinking if I had actually had access to anything stronger than tobacco now would be a good time to use it. However it was a no smoking room and a moot point cause I didn't have anything stronger than a some what watered down rum and diet coke waiting for me on my night stand. SO even though the pull out sofa couch/bed is a Queen only Kaiden can sleep on it - fine. I pull out the extra set of sheets for him get him all tucked in on that bed, find a recharging iphone dock which also does white noise, double score!! Take the quilt fold it to make a pallet on the floor for Pierce at the foot of my bed up against the wall there WAS a little bench, which I moved and it was the perfect spot for P-dawg. He couldn't roll around, fall off anything and felt secure which is a good sleep inducing quality. SO I finally get them all down sip what is left of my former beverage, tip toe to the restroom take a GLORIOUS hot shower, cry for a few minutes that this is 'really happening!! I am no longer going to have my Mom just 2 miles up the road, and the best group of girlfriends just seconds away, and not to mention my support team in the therapists, doctors, schools, church. . . . .etc" Pulled my self together got out of the shower put on PJs, brushed my teeth, tip toed back to my bed, the sound of deep peaceful sleeping breathing patterns and white noise, a very welcomed choir, and now at 12:30am central time (1:30am Eastern) I was finally crawling in the sheets with sweet little Dax dreaming peacefully.

Life. Was. Good.

For about 25 minutes. HA! You guessed it, Dax needed to eat and since he had done so good that day and because he had been bottle fed and I hadn't had a chance to pump during the day's chaos I was 'over flowing' so I laid there in and out of sleep while he ate, I changed his diaper, took the chance to put him in proper PJs and then just before 2:00am we went to sleep. WELL technically NOT YET. I put Dax down on the bed and tip toed back to the restroom to potty just in case since I was already up, and took the chance to call Dave and see where he was and how he was doing. He was somewhere in Mississippi in a truck stop taking a quick cat nap and then would get headed back down the road soon. SO after I knew all my boys were OK I climbed back in bed and finally drifted, well more like free fell head first into SLEEP!!