The most disgusting car ride ever

We drove down to Norfolk this weekend to visit Jennifer and Mark at ODU. It is a simple three hour drive. Just take 95 all the way to 64, through the Harbor Tunnel and you're there. Or not. Instead, it took us 5 1/2 hours down and 5 hours back due to ridiculous traffic on the way down followed by accidents and bad weather coming back. Was I prepared for that extra time in the car? No.

My new, beautiful car has now been christened a family wagon in ways I did not expect. On the way down, Andy spilled chocolate milk all over the back seat. That was bad enough, only to be followed today by his sister. We hadn't even gotten on the highway when she threw up all over herself. Outside of Richmond, Andy decided he had to pee and poop RIGHT NOW. So Bjorn pulled over and took him into the woods (most likely through poison ivy). He did one, but not the other (thankfully, and thankfully he didn't have to later).

Then about 3 1/2 hours in during a particularly bad stretch of bumper to bumper traffic, I felt her and realized needed a diaper change pretty immediately. I quickly pulled her out and laid her on the floor of the car for a quick change only to have not noticed that the diaper was completely full of poop so I managed to get it all over myself fixing it (a poor Thomas towel Andy was using as a blanket had to temporarily be sacrificed). Then because traffic was so horrible, we couldn't pull off the highway the next time Andy demanded to pee so I just took my empty Starbucks cup and let him pee in it. I'm not proud of it, but it did get the job done. I never imagined that boys really could pee in a jar or whatnot on a road trip, but it really did work.

Horrible drives aside, we had a nice visit with Jennifer (Mark was working most of the time so we didn't get to really see him much). We took nice walks through ODU and saw the mysterious monorail that was built on campus, but never used, saw the restaurant where Mark works, ate in Ghent and hung out briefly on Virginia Beach. It was a very busy weekend.

Meg, meanwhile, continues to have spurts of throwing up her whole dinner. About once a day, she coughs so hard it brings up the works. It certainly concerns me (as does her recent bout of not sleeping through the night again), but her doctor has it's not a problem so I'm trying to take a more zen approach that she's growing fine, she's healthy, she's not dehydrated, it's just that temporarily she is a laundry problem. Plus, she has her six month visit next week so I plan to bring it up again then.