Traveling With Emsley

So this weekend we embarked on our first Great Journey with Emsley. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Kami's grandfather is not doing well - at all. So we needed to go to Duncan, Oklahoma (about an hour south-southwest of Oklahoma City) to visit.

We decided to rent a car. Our Santa Fe, whom I am now calling "Jondiss," has 115,000 miles on it. And we're driving on borrowed time regarding the timing belt. And I'll be crunked if I'm going to need a new timing belt in the Middle of Nowhere, AR at the end of August with a 6-week old and a dainty wife in the car.

So we rented a car. A Chevy Cruze, in which they sacrificed common comfort for gas mileage. Here's the conversation I had with the rental car lady at 7:10am on Friday, before going to work for four hours:

Rental Car Lady: "Where are you headed?"
Me: "Oklahoma."
Rental Car Lady: (Checks my license) "Do you still live in Hermitage?"
Me: "Yes, ma'am."
Rental Car Lady: "Do you need a map of Nashville?"
Me: "No, ma'am."
Rental Car Lady: "Why not?"
Me: "Because, as I said, I live here. And I'm going to Oklahoma."

Off we went, about noon. Given that we were going to need to stop every few hours for Emsley (and mommy and daddy) to stretch, eat, burp, hold her butt up in the air so I could change her diaper, and get back on the road.

In Plumerville, Arkansas, we stopped so Emsley could eat. Plumerville, Arkansas, if you didn't know, is in 1963. A gentlemen in a Jewish Games t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts (he was a goatee away from a George Michael tribute show) told us how it cost him $500 to have three teeth removed - which means he was three under par among people in Arkansas (HEY-O). He had seven kids, and nine grandchildren. We know this, because he told us, unsolicited. (There was also a four-year old girl, who waited outside while her mother loaded up an armful of beef jerky. Seriously we couldn't have been in Arkansas more. The girl said she was dirty. When Kami asked why, she replied, "Cuz I rolled around in dirt!" And this is the state boasting the allegedly fourth-best college football team in the country.)

On Friday night, our options were as such: Drive until 2am to Duncan, or stop in Sallisaw with Kami's uncle at 10pm. We voted for the 10pm option, and stayed the night. Kami slept about an hour and a half. Why? We don't have a Pack 'N' Play, so Emsley slept in the bed while Kami obsessed over the remote possibility of rolling over on her. (Of course, she would never do such a thing. I, however...) I slept in a different bed, and don't remember anything about that night.

We left Sallisaw at 6am Saturday morning. And what do you know? Guess who forgot the diapers? We had to stop at a Wal-Mart in Shawnee, Oklahoma to get more - delaying us further. Ultimately, we made it to Duncan at about 11am Saturday.

It was a great visit. Everybody from the family was there, and it was truly a celebration of life, with Kami's grandparents, five kids, eight grandkids, five great-grandkids in attendance. I took a nap.

There was a period of time where we thought Kami might stay in Texas for the week. Kami's brother and his wife are planning on driving to Nashville with Harper, Emsley's six-month old cousin, for Labor Day weekend. So, for long enough that I completely unloaded the car, Kami and Emsley were going to stay in Texas and hang out while she didn't have to work. But then, with the realization that Kami's parents have the first week of school starting today (Monday), and the possibility that we would be faced with a last-minute plane ticket from Dallas to Nashville should they not be able - for whatever reason - to make the trip, she decided to come back with me.

As an aside, the best pancake syrup - ever - is Griffin's. It's only sold in Oklahoma, presumably because the don't like money. Or "Market Share." So I went to Goodner's Grocery Story in Duncan to buy a bottle of Griffin's. If I may, I dubbed the Goodner's as the Most Depressing Place on Earth. If you move the frozen boxes of fish sticks on the sixth of eight aisles, you may very well find a portal to hell. The most premium alcohol sold at Goodner's is Smirnoff Ice.

Sunday morning, 21 hours after we arrived, we got in the car to drive off, back to Nashville. I thought I knew what lay ahead - Google Maps said it was 12.5 hours from Duncan to Nashville. That's preposterous, and we knew it. I know for a fact that there are two Starbucks off the interstate in between Oklahoma City and Nashville. The first is in Oklahoma City, just off of I-240. The other is in Conway, Arkansas. At Oklahoma City, I had to go to the bathroom. Kami and Emsley were asleep. We still had about 13 hours in front of us, and I could use 20 ozs of coffee. I thought I was in the clear.

I was wrong.

In the four minutes it took me to get a coffee and go to the bathroom, Emsley woke up and got fussy. "Nuclear" would appropriately describe Kami's reaction to my actions. The combination of the timing of the stop - a mere 90 minutes after we left, Kami being in the middle of a very emotional weekend, a combined five hours of sleep over the previous two days, and my douchiness were the detonators.

An hour later, after Emsley had eaten, and had a diaper change, we were off. Some jacknut trucker had driven his transport truck into a guardrail, and I-40 east of OKC to one lane. We stopped off again in Sallisaw to show off Emsley to Kami's other set of grandparents, and spent two hours there. There was a six-mile stretch in Arkansas where Emsley simply couldn't get enough to eat, so we stopped at two McDonald's to feed her. Oh yes, and 22 mosquitoes found their way into the car when I opened the door - eight of which bit me on my toe knuckles. There's nothing acceptable about Arkansas.


When I got the rental car, I pre-paid the last tank of gas, which they were offering at $3.15/gallon. Considering that the cheapest we paid the whole trip was $3.49/gallon, that was a good call. It also means that I was very interested in letting the car run out of gas as I pulled up to the drop-off. So in an effort to keep Emsley asleep (with Kami next to her in the back seat), I didn't stop from west of Memphis all the way to Nashville. This stretch of highway is the pit of hell. Thanks to barbeque sunflower seeds and MLB Network Radio, and seven hours of sleep the night before (because Emsley slept through the night), we made it back home at 12:52am - 16 hours after we left. And the alarm went off at 5:50 this morning. I returned the car with 8 miles left in the tank.



The final tally: 1600 miles in 61 hours with a six-week old. That's 26 miles per hour, even while we were stopped, visiting, and sleeping. And I got fussier than Emsley did - she was an absolute angel. It was a quick trip, but a necessary one. Emsley may not remember the weekend we spent with Poppy, but we all will.

No way it's been almost six weeks

So little Emsley will be six weeks old on Wednesday. That makes absolutely no sense, though I realize that I'll be saying that for the next 30+ years. While I apologize that it's been so long since you and I have had a little chat, in fairness (to me), we've been a little busy.

Here's what I've learned over the course of the past 5 1/2 weeks:

1. Sleeping. Emsley sleeps pretty great. She fights her naps during the day, which means that she crashes out pretty hard at night. Over the past two weeks or so, she has evolved from two-a-nights to one feeding during the night. Ever more occasionally, she sleeps between 10pm-4:30am. My alarm typically goes off a little after 5am, so I get up with her, and feed her for the early-morning feeding times.

 Here's what I have noticed about my sleeping habits, though. I don't need much sleep - if I get around six hours of sleep a night, I'm generally pretty good (until I do that for 2-3 months, and then I get sick). But I have noticed that I have been in the habit of getting those six hours all at once.

 The day Kami went into labor, we had been up since 4:30am. Kami because she couldn't sleep, me because Brown Dog woke me up because he was chewing his own rear end so loud, it disturbed my slumber. Her water broke later that afternoon, and we were up all night, and then most of the following day. At 10pm I was sitting on what felt like a liferaft (uncomfortable, and waterproof), had been up for 39.5 out of about 40 hours, and recall thinking, "This is odd. The room seems to be turning 90 degrees to the right." And I woke up three hours later, face-down on the liferaft, covered in drool - hence the "waterproof" note, it had pooled up just under my nose.

Anyhow, getting two three-hour naps puts the hurt on my day...

Which leads to the second thing I've learned...

2. It's not about me. I'm an only child, and Kami has spent the last 9+ years conditioning Only Child Syndrome (symptoms include feet-stamping and extreme pouting) out of me. But something has come over me, where I'm typically more than happy to just do things for Kami and Emsley. Whether that's laundry, dishes, cleaning bottles, or sterilizing pacifiers - it's all pretty awesome, because I get to be a dad and help Kami out. And it's almost a badge of honor to look like I'm one meeting away from falling out of my chair and falling asleep on the floor (I have learned to work through lunch, and then go somewhere cool and quiet to take a 20-minute nap). If someone at work asks, "Hey, are you okay? You just ripped that guy's throat out...quite literally, unfortunately." You can say, "Ah. Baby duty. I've been up since 3:45." And all is well. Having a child is a solid excuse for poor social behaviour.

3. Coming home from work to your wife and kid is pretty much the best thing ever.

4. I can't swaddle to save my life. But that's okay, because Emsley hates being swaddled. When she was first in the hospital, the nurses would swaddle her (because at one point I cried out at 2am, "Jeebus! It's like trying to put pants on an octopus!" They came in pretty quick after that. Kami may have dinged the button while I fought back tears.) and within five minutes Emsley would throw her feet up like a V-Up Roll-Up from P90X. I know that's from P90X because I've done the first week like eight times. Emsley, being, 9lbs 7ozs was obviously a little cramped. So she slept cross-legged. Having slept cross-legged for so long, she did not like to have her legs swaddled up. Even in her sleep sack - perhaps the greatest sleeping invention ever, seriously, I'd pay $67.95 for an adult sleep sack - she sleeps cross-legged.

5. Emsley is the perfect combination of Kami and myself. She's just so beautiful, just like her mommy. Funny thing is, Emsley sleeps with her arms above her head - like so ---->

At night, I like to read for about 30-45 minutes before going to bed. So the other night, I went to bed after Kami did, and I leaned over to give Kami a kiss. And lo and behold, Kami's arms were in the exact same position.

6. This is going to be totally awesome. And I'm going to write about it more.