No Coffee Or Red Box In Atlanta! (Or At Least, by NW Standards) Part One

We made it! 6 days on the road, 2 cars, 4 adults, 2 preschoolers, 1 baby, 1 policeman, and 2 frosties, and countless coffees later, we are in Atlanta, GA. I am so grateful for all of the grace God gave us. Most of Lucy's poopy diapers were timed while we were stopped, or about to stop. The kids did really well, no more arguments than on a normal day. No car problems. No driver problems. It was a really a wonderful trip. Almost like a vacation. A really really intense vacation.

It took us the entire first day to figure out that we needed to fill up Lucy and the gas guzzling car with the trailer, and hopefully take care of any and all other necessary details. Seems pretty basic, right? But man, it is pretty challenging to line up all the needs of 7 people and 2 cars on a three hour schedule.

I think our most exciting moment was between Vegas and the Grand Canyon (referred to by Emily as the Gran Candy.) We have been making a lot of progress in the potty training area, and are down to one child in diapers, and two mostly just wearing one at night (Joe still wears a pull-up when we leave the house.) Emily has had a harder time with "#2" and has worked really hard to make progress. However, she is also prone to false alarms, novelty stops (seeing a new bathroom) and playing the potty card to get out of something she does not want to be doing. A little bit before lunch, she starts squeaking and moaning that she has to go poop. Ok. What do you do? Out in the middle of the desert. I mean, there is NOWHERE to stop, even if we wanted to. Joe is poopy in his pull-up and not happy about it. Lucy is screaming becuase she is tired and does not want to go to sleep. We pull over and grab the potty from the back. In the middle of getting Joe unbuckled to take care of him, we look up and there is a police car behind us. Oh yes. Out in the middle of the desert, a half-naked child sitting on the potty next to the car, one whining one in the car, and one screaming baby in the car. Can you get arrested for child indecency? Or ticketed?

The policeman used his speaker to ask if we needed any help. How do I answer that? Yes, would you please change the pull-up? Or how about the screaming baby? No, we are ok. Thank you. Just had a toddler potty emergency.

We spent the next few minutes on the side of the road while Emily played with rocks but could not manage to get anything out. (Do scorpians like to hang out in the rocks next to the freeway? How about snakes?) Joe, of course had to use the potty as well. And we hit the road again. We had potty sucess on our second emergency stop. Phew. The next day we put pull-ups on both of them and answered questions, "Yes, you are wearing a pull-up. Yes, you may go potty in your pull-up." and "I know you need to go potty, but we are in the middle of nowhere . You may hold it until the next stop, or go in your pull-up." all the way to Atlanta. Thankfully, we are back on track in our new house. Phew. Thank you, Jesus.

Hm, all of the children are asleep. I had better get some, too. I will continue the brief summary of our Big Adventure tomorrow, and then hopefully return to normalcy. (Ha!)


(Pictures to come!)