Highway To...Well, You Know

Yesterday afternoon Sam, Matilda, and I had a four-hour drive home. We were all on our third day of little to no sleep. We set off on our journey and I told myself to just keep my eyes forward and remind myself that eventually we'd be home.

The kids fell asleep right away and were both out for two hours. When they woke up we stopped for a late lunch. Matilda had a bottle and Sam and I got fast food to go. I was feeling good about our trip. We had an hour left and then Matilda started crying.

She was CRYING-crying. The angry, screaming, vibrato cry of a furious baby. Sam tried giving her a nuk and singing songs. Nothing he did helped her so he started crying. I was so upset and wanted so badly to get out of that car but we were only an hour from home! I thought stopping would just prolong our agony. So forward I went - into road construction.

The four lanes of 90 were down to two. Traffic was slowed to about 45 mph. Completely exhausted, I had to concentrate on keeping my car in the narrow corridor between the orange cones. Matilda continued to scream and then I heard Sam's little voice trying to tell me something.

"What?" I yelled into the backseat, not wanting to take my eyes off the road.

"My food needs to come out!" Sam yelled back. In the rear-view mirror I saw him holding his stomach.

"Sam!" I yelled, still trying to make myself heard over Matilda's screaming. "WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?"

"Well, it's okay," he said. "But my food is going to come out."

"SAM!" I said again. "If there was ever a time I needed you to be specific, it is now! What is your food going to do?"

"BARF!" Sam yelled as loud as he could.

I passed the empty fast-food bag back to him. White-knuckling the steering wheel I concentrated on staying on the road as Matilda cried as if her heart was broken and Sam held his face in an empty Burger King bag.

Never again.