Two weeks before Mother’s Day, I had an unfortunate passing of a family member. The plane tickets were ridiculous for myself, my husband, my sister, and my mother to all get home last minute, so we did what any other family would do…we rented a SUV and prepared to make the 9 hour drive home. Now I know many of you are thinking…wait you traveled for 9 hours with a baby?!?! Listen Linda…let me explain…
December of last year, Mason rode home around Christmas time and it was a breeze. He was 4 months old, couldn’t walk, had no desire to get out of his car seat, and was so content with a pacifier and a toy. Oh how things have changed in 5 months! Mason is a certified busy body. Crawling around, talking up a storm, and quick to dive off the couch head first to go explore. My husband and I were both preparing ourselves for a difficult ride with the mindset we can tag team this thang all the way home.
I don’t know who checked Texas’s weather or if you have Texas followers by chance, but rain was all up and through Texas that Thursday morning we decided to push out for Tennessee. We got on the road at 4:45 a.m. ish. I drove the first leg, seeing as I am used to getting up at 5am for workout. I got my coffee, egg white mcmuffin, and hashbrown from McDonald’s and we were on our way. Mason slept the first 4 hours and I took full advantage except for the thunderstorms and rain that kept slowing me down. It literally rained 80% of the time going to Tennessee. We stopped once to get Mason warm water to sit his bottle in and twice to get gas. I thought that rain and Mason would drive us up a wall, but yall!! Mason was the quietest, chillest, sleepingest baby lol!! We had Finding Nemo and the Incredibles downloaded on my iPad, and he sat back and enjoyed the ride. By the time he got antsy and was starting to want out of that car seat, we were crossing the Arkansas/Tennessee border into good ole Memphis!
With such a great ride in, we were praying for a great ride back with Mason. Lawd please let him be just as sweet and quiet on the way back as he was on the way up. Little did we know, there was so much more in store for that ride. We left Covington at 5:30 a.m. and my husband drove the first leg. I fell asleep and woke up around 9 a.m. to a flat freakin tire! A new truck with less than 8k miles on it got a freakin flat! We had to sit on the side of the interstate for almost an hour waiting on a tow truck because the truck had no spare. Tow truck came and a van from Enterprise picked us up and followed the tow truck to Firestone. Enterprise had no other rentals for us in the area (we were right outisde of Hot Springs, AR) so we had to wait for Firestone to change the tire. OF course, Firestone had no tires for the SUV so they had to send someone to their warehouse to pick one up. That was another hour. This whole time, Mason was just a smiling and using the front seat and middle console as a playground. We let him out of his car seat while we waited for the tow truck and van. Then once we got to Firestone, we let him out to go in his carrier as we walked to Zaxby’s (it was in the same parking lot as Firestone GLORRRRAAAYY!) By the time we got back from Zaxby’s, about 15 minutes after that, our car was ready to go. We did not get back on the road till after 12 p.m.
We are on the road, and remember that rain we drove through 80% of the way to Tennessee? Well it was waiting on us when we were coming into Texas! Let me show you how good God is! We got on the road, and about an hour in started seeing road blocks where trees were laying across the road. Like trees had been pulled up from the root and were blocking roads and driveways. My God!! The delay in our road trip was not to hinder us but to protect us!! God had already went before us and made sure we were safe! The entire time we were delayed I was not upset, I wasn’t worked up, I was calm and patient. When I saw all that, all I could do was thank Him! Now true enough the rain kept coming till we got to freakin Spring, TX, but Mason was just as chill and calm on the way back to Houston as he was on the way up!
I had heard so many horror stories about traveling with a baby, but the kid just keeps showing us we just may be alright! We were so up in the air with this possible move to Cleveland that we couldn’t buy plane tickets home for my sister in love’s graduation next week, so you know what we doing! Road trippin with the kid AGAIN! Yall pray we have another round of great baby with a lot less rain!
Kelz
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