This year I had the pleasure of being able to go and see my family on Good Friday and stay for the whole Easter break. Previous years I have had to work. This meant not leaving until late on Friday or early Saturday. Late on Good Friday means traffic – really, really bad traffic. The joys of being a writer is that I can write anywhere with Wifi and my laptop! So this year I awoke joyously on Good Friday. The sun was shining, a good day for a road trip!
My husband and I currently share a car so this means he has to drive me to Tipperary where I meet either my mom or dad. After a short break we continue on to Kerry. The tiny lady usually sleeps at least part of the journey…I stress the word usually!
The first part of the journey commenced. Everyone was in a good mood, the tiny lady was smiling and chatting. We shared a small packet of crisps. We pointed out cows and horses and – my daughter’s favourite – beep beeps! Then her eyes grew heavy. Great we thought, still an hour to go so she will get a decent enough nap. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Her eyes grew heavier. More time passed. She fought the good fight. No way was she missing out on a Family Road Trip. This meant I had to hear ‘mama’ at least every two seconds. I’m not even close to kidding. When I turned around she would look desperately around for something to say then point randomly and say ‘house’. This lasted quite a while. Five minutes before we reached our destination the sleep fairy hit. Too little, too late I thought furiously, mentally adding the sleep fairy to my top five list of Most Hated Fairies (naturally the teething fairy is still number one). But then I figured she would sleep on leg two of our journey.
No such luck. Again her eyes grew heavier and heavier but she kept waking herself up. My mum switched on the Beatles in an attempt to soothe her (music being ever used to tame the savage beast – not that I am implying that my gorgeous daughter is even close to being beastly). But this appeared to anger her and resulted in furious head tossing and shouts of ‘no’. There you go Paul and John, not everyone is a fan apparently.
A nappy change upon arrival revealed the reason behind her travelling blues. She had a giant poo! I felt so bad as she had told me and my mom that she had a ‘pooey’ during our tea break. She had already had her ‘poop of the day’ (and this child never poops more than once) so we both just shrugged it off. Next time just check, I scolded myself! Ah yes another dose of mammy guilt for me! But then isn’t that what a good Irish Easter is all about?!
(Mis) Adventures in Toddlerdom 