It’s been several weeks since I’ve written and we’ve had a bunch of activity at our house. But first, I must finish our holiday travel story.
When I left you last time, we had just finished dealing with all of the kids throwing up in their beds at night and the clean up that ensued. Our departure from Grandma and Grandpa Pansegrau’s was planned for December 23. We wanted to get home and make sure that we could have Christmas at home as a family. Unfortunately, old Mother Nature didn’t agree with our plans. She decided to screw with us a second time on this trip. She dumped another snow storm on us in Central and NE Iowa on the 23rd. We weren’t comfortable traveling so we decided to stay and extra night. Angela’s sister Katie was coming home on 23rd and Angela hadn’t seen her sister in a long time so that helped ice the deal. As we woke o the 24th, the snow was still coming down and it looked bad, but Angela’s dad had been out on the roads early that morning and said things were fine. We loaded everyone up and left immediately after lunch.
Dave clearly had not been on Hwy 63, because he wouldn’t have sent his daughter and only 6 grandchildren out on that road. It took us an hour to travel the first 30 miles. The road was covered and visibility was horrible. We got stuck behind someone and I was concerned that he was traveling so slow it might get us stuck. The BAV doesn’t have 4 wheel drive so it’s always a concern for me in bad conditions. I told Angela that we’d press on, but if things didn’t improve by the time we got north of Waterloo (another 30 miles) we were turning around and we may have Christmas at her parent’s house.
Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal to turn around and just travel on Christmas Day. We’ve done it before, but the problem was that we had yet to wrap a single present. The problem is that Angela acquired her mother’s holiday shopping gene and she over did it with the presents. As you read on, you’ll realize that I didn’t know the extent of how much she had and how that got me in the doghouse.
Low and behold, the roads got better once we got to Waterloo and north of there. The bad weather put our schedule off and that meant trouble in the van. Snack time would be off and so would supper. These kids (and mom and dad for that matter) are so structured that going off the schedule can really be a major issue. Needless to say, I had some time to make up on the roads. I was doing and awesome job. Any NASCAR driver would have been proud of how I handled the BAV for the next 4 hours.
I was flying through Rochester, MN and things were running smooth until we heard some gagging and coughing from the back of the van. Madeline threw up. No!!!!!!!! You have to kidding me. Again…really…she just threw up everything know to man a day ago and all she had was crackers and water in the past 24 hours. Angela raced to the back of the van to help her out to make sure she didn’t choke. I slowed down and quickly cut across 3 lanes of traffic to pull off at the next exit. It was clear to Angela that we couldn’t do much from our position and sitting still was only going to make the overall situation worse so she told me to drive on.
Dear Lord, the smell circulated through the van and it reached all the way to the front. Gross. A minute later, more gagging and coughing from the back. This time it was Alex. He apparently can’t handle the smell either. Angela raced back again, but this time I kept my foot down and pushed on. We were about 75 minutes from home.
The pressure from the entire trip was starting to mount. My knuckles were white and we had both had enough. Voiced were raised and the tension was thick. We needed to be home now, now, now!!!! I made that 75 minutes in close to 50. We called from the road (on Christmas Eve) and had some friends help us out. Thank you Angela and Monica!!! By the way, both Maddie and Alex got sick a second time on that last stretch. Angela ran inside and got a bath running. I unloaded the kids, dry heaved in the process of pulling out the sick ones. Angela Kaiser helped us with the kids until things were in order. The other 4 kids were fed and changed and off to bed for the night.
Oh, that’s right it was Christmas Eve…the presents. The wrapping started around 8:15pm or so and at 12:30am, I had had enough. This was getting ridiculous. I deliberately picked a fight with Angela. As predicted, she sent me to bed, which was exactly what I wanted. I have no idea when she came to bed. Seconds later I opened my eyes and it was Christmas morning. Damn it, I hate it when I feel like I blink and its morning. We were so exhausted.
Christmas Day went fine with no major issues, but the coming two weeks topped it all off like a giant cherry. Remember, the kids all acquired the cold/virus that Angela had prior to us leaving Grandma’s house. A couple days after returning, all of them acquired pink eye on top of the cold. Now we had snot coming from our noses and eyes. All of them started teething a couple days later. They started cutting their molars and what front teeth they had left. Now we had fevers and some “inconsistent” diapers. A week or so later, they all had their 18 month “well visit” check up at the doctor. They all got 3 shots(the last shots until kindergarten). 3 of the 5 had ear infections. They were getting regular Tylenol and Motrin for the teething and the fevers, eye drops three times a day for the pink eye, antibiotics for the ear infections and were just generally crabby for two weeks.
We just finished a very very long 4 week stretch. Mom and Dad were spent.
Needless to say, we’re all doing really well now and we have a variety of updates that I need to get out. Looks like there won’t be anything going on this Sunday so I’ll likely have plenty of free time to write then…I hate the Packers. I don’t know if I can emotionally handle it if they win. The abuse that I’ll take may send me over the edge. Can both teams lose?
Until next time…
Posted 1 year ago at 8:00 am. 4 comments
This particular story is near the end of our VERY long holiday journey over the river and through the woods.
After arriving at Angela’s parents’ home a few days before Christmas, things seemed to going pretty well. It took the kids a little while to settle in, but we ended up doing pretty well. The only early setback, was that Angela and Meredith started to come down with a cold.
Angela’s parents have a large house that’s a little spread out. Normally when we visit, we take up residence in the basement. Anglea, Meredith and I take one of the bedrooms and the quints take the other. Much like my parents house, we arrange for each of the quints to have their own pack and play to sleep in.
Quick funny story. The first night we’re at Dave and Becky’s, Meredith was complaining as we got ready for bed that she didn’t like Grandma’s hot pool. Dave and Becky have a very nice whirlpool, but Meredith clearly wasn’t impressed. As we got to our bedroom and we prepared a space for her on the floor next to the bed, she asked if this bedroom had a TV. I immediately became upset. I recall thinking, “You little shit, who the hell do you think you are. No, there is no TV.” What I said to her was, “This is not a Holiday Inn. Be quiet and lay down.” She is clearly Angela’s daughter.
On the morning of the 22nd I woke to one of the kids crying. Angela had already been upstairs from the night before due to Meredith’s incredibly poor sleeping habits and the newly acquired cold. She wasn’t feeling well. As I approached the quints bedroom, I met Angela’s mom as she heard one crying as well. As we approached the door we could tell that something wasn’t right. There was a very foul smell in the air. Becky thought it might be the cat litter box that needed a bit of attention. I was worried that our dog, Maggie, had gotten sick or left a load on the basement floor much like the one she left in Ames. We took a quick look around, but couldn’t find anything. As I opened the door, an odor that originated from one of Dante’s levels of hell hit us square in the face. Brooklyn was the only one crying and she had gotten sick. As the others slept, I quickly scooped her up and made my way upstairs. She was gonna need a bath, pronto! Strange thing was that the vomit had dried to her pajamas and it confused us a little. How long had she slept in that mess? Angela started the bath water and I handed her off as I heard another baby start to cry. After making my way back to the basement, I quickly opened the door and identified Alex as the next one that was up. Alex’s crib was in the back of the room and I had to snake my way between the other pack and plays to get to him. In an effort to not disturb the other three sleeping kids, I quickly grabbed him under the arms and started to quickly scoot out of the room. However, I noticed that he was very smelly and his pajamas were a bit crusty on my arms. He had gotten sick too.
I quickly thought to myself, “How many of the kids got sick?” I looked down and Emma had something chunky stuck to her forehead as she slept. Madeline did too. As I peered down at Lauren on my way out the door, she looked like that shaggy dog that’s been lying under the porch for the last year. She had this huge matted mess of curly hair and vomit stuck to the side of her face, but the three of them kept sleeping as I quickly made my way out of the room with a crying Alex in tow.
I brought Alex upstairs to the bathroom and dropped him off for Angela and her mom whom had the bath tub running. I told her that Alex got sick and all three of the others had been sick too. I asked Angela what I should do with the other three. They were peacefully sleeping in their own vomit. I said to them, “Do I wake them? It seems somewhat neglectful to let them sleep in their own vomit, doesn’t it?” Becky laughed at me. “I don’t know what to do. There isn’t a handbook for this crap.” Brooklyn and Alex sobbed and looked absolutely miserable in the tub as we discussed our plan of attack.
Eventually all of them awoke and they all got their bath. Angela scrubbed and scrubbed, but they all had a horrible smell to them after their bath and it remained that way for a few more days.
What makes this whole situation worse was what they threw up: lasagna and garlic toast and mac and cheese and hot dogs (the previous day’s dinner and lunch, respectfully). You know that nice greasy orange tomato sauce that stains your Tupperware, yeah it was everywhere and the smell was absolutely toxic. Clean up took more 4 hours.
Angela and her mom chose to use a shop vac to help with the clean up, but the one they used was an older model that the Pansegrau family had used for a very long time. When they turned it on, sheetrock dust shot out the exhaust. I’m chuckling about as I write this. It wasn’t funny then, but I can laugh now. Here’s a little background that adds salt to this wound. Three years ago Angela and I bought her dad a brand new shop vac for Christmas. He’s so hard to shop for. When we pulled the BAV in the garage after arriving the day prior, we saw that brand new shop vac on the shelf in the garage, still sitting there unopened.
As the clean up continued, Becky had started some water in the utility sink in the laundry room so that the pajamas that they got sick in could soak for a while. As you might imagine, Becky and Angela got busy and they forgot to turn the water off. Here’s the kicker, the floor drain plugged up and they had a inch of water in the basement laundry room. I was upstairs with the kids as all of this was going on. I could hear yelling downstairs and someone quickly coming up the basement steps. Angela was calling for me and she had some purpose in her tone. I met her at the top of the steps and she told me to “go out to that F-ing garage and go get that F-ing shop vac that her dad hadn’t opened up yet.” She told me that the basement was flooding and they needed it NOW.
I ran out, grabbed it, ran back in with the box, made it down the steps and started unpacking it. Those two knuckleheads had bath towels strew about the laundry room floor trying to soak up the water. I quickly got the vac running and went straight to the floor drain. It felt like a dozen golf balls got sucked up through that tube in a second or two. I quickly turned it off and all of the remaining water in the room flowed to and down the drain.
They kept cleaning up the water and vomit mess for a couple hours longer. An incredibly foul smell of bleach and vomit lingered in the basement, but it was so much better than what was.
Angela told me later that her mom at one point stopped what she was doing in the laundry room while standing there in the water and said that the Griswold Family has nothing on us. Dear God, I’m not really turning in to Clark am I? The more I reflect on it, it’s kind of scary how similar we are.
Coming up next, the Tille family’s (opps, I mean Griswold family’s), trip home. Oy Vey.
Until next time…
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 10:16 pm. 11 comments