Trail o’ Tears

Blogger’s note: if you are here looking to plagarize a paper on what the white man did to the Natives, go look in a real book and not on the web.  This is a post about parental failure. 

This is what happens when Addy does not take a nap.

 

What’s the problem here?  She was mad because she wanted that pouch I gave her.

Oh and the fact that she had been up since 8am.  She had started to doze off around 12:45p, which was unfortunately in the car approximately 10 minutes before we got to YaYa’s house.

I don’t mean to accuse my parents of foul play but I swear they must pump that house full of oxygen because Addy had a surge of energy as soon as we got in there.  I knew Addy was sleepy.  Addy knew she was sleepy.  We tried to coax her back to nap with Bubble Guppies and YaYa’s comfy bed.

It worked.

On me.

I napped for about 20 minutes no problem.  I’m pretty sure Addy was rubbing my back and while we weren’t looking YaYa probably dozed off too.  PawPaw came in to make some crack about me going to sleep and I mumbled something else back.

Either way. Addy did not nap.

We then went to a family gathering where there were lots of children and bubbles and a poodle and other things to keep Addy entertained.

We got back to YaYa’s about 545? 6? Who knows.  But I opted to just transfer the kid to my car instead of taking her into YaYa’s fun house.

Then the tears began.

For those of you who don’t live in the giant city of Houston, it takes approximately 20 minutes to get anywhere, there is always construction, and you must always have an alternate route.  Here was our route.

 

As per usual there was construction on Beltway 8 which would have made our commute 25 minutes but whatever.

 

“But Bre, what are those crudely drawn lines on that clear cut Google map?” you’re probably asking me.

Well that is the amount of crying that was done.

Although the miles are accurate, the time is not.  The purple route would take, say 30 minutes, if my Mini chose to stay within the proposed speed limits.

But we spent an extra 13 minutes near Point A because I had to get gas before we left the burbs.  The red is the most intense of the screaming and wailing.  To which could be heard outside of the car at the pump across from me by my friend’s mother who was in the car listening to the radio.

“Bre,” she yelled at me ,”is that the baby?!”

“Yes. She’s being ridiculous,” I said with a sighshrug

The intense red yelling was also accompanied by random “NO! NO!” yelling.  I’m not sure what she was protesting but I don’t ever actually know.  I just turned the radio up pretty loudly.  This may not be effective parenting or consoling but I mean So Fresh, So Clean was on and there was really nothing else I could do.

Right before we got to 610 she was incredibly quiet.  I peeked back in the rear view mirror and saw her eyes closed and that same damn pouch in her little fists.  Not a drop spilled or ingested.  She just held on to it.  I was about to pluck it away but she started crying again.  That’s where the orange line starts.

But her eyes were still closed.

I don’t know if she was angry sleeping or still mad but too tired to open her eyes and cry properly.  I don’t care.

She was sleepmad until we got downtown and then she was quiet AND asleep and I plucked the pouch from her tiny hands and hoped nothing delayed us from getting home.

She napped until 930.  Sleep for what I hope is the night at 1140.

This is why the good Lord gave parents coffee.