Can't script this

Often people ask me how I come with material for my column, hinting that I must make this stuff up. Um ... no, I don't have to. I just wait to see what happens or which kid does what to me that week, and voila, material! Any other mom out there knows you can't script some of the things that happen to us, it's just if you write it down or not. For instance, last weekend so many ridiculous things happened on our trip out of town that I couldn't even narrow down what I should write about.

I wondered if I should describe the zoo ordeal, which alone, could have been its very own column. We had a basketball tournament for her big sister to go to on Saturday and Sunday in a town over five hours away, so we decided to go up early on Friday and surprise our 8-year-old by taking her and her sisters to the zoo which was on the way there. We were no more than 30 minutes away from the zoo and the 8 year old face started to turn green and the stomach pains doubled her over in the backseat.

We get to the parking lot, she's bawling because she doesn't want to miss the zoo, her favorite place ever, so we stupidly decide to go ahead and try it, paying for her admittance into the zoo. We rented a wagon so she could lie down and were only able to roll her into the rainforest exhibit before she puked the first time. Do you know how awkward it is to look at monkeys and birds like all the other families, while secretly holding a warm, little plastic sack of vomit praying a trash can is nearby?

Refusing to give up, however, we moved on to the desert exhibit before she puked a second time. So ... 30 minutes into the zoo, she's barely conscious and could care less about life in general, so she and Hubby spent the next 3 hours in the truck while her sisters and I finish touring the zoo. Drove four and a half hours and dropped $45 for her and Daddy to sit in the truck all afternoon. Awesome ...

But then I wondered if I should write about when we left the zoo and I was in charge of giving driving directions through the big city for Hubby while riding shotgun in the passenger seat.

However, because I'm the mom, I was of course also responsible for making sure the 8 year old didn't puke all over the truck. So ... I had to reach in the backseat with my left hand, dislocating my shoulder, so I could hold her hair back while she threw up in a cup, but also had to hold my cell phone with navigation in my right hand in the front seat, so I could direct Hubby successfully through traffic.

While performing this trick only a mom could pull off, I made sure to keep my composure but was thinking to myself how these are the situations that happen to moms that can never be predicted and are so off the wall that you can only laugh at how outrageous it is. I know it must have looked hilarious, because as usual, the two big girls in the back of the truck were of little help and sat stifling their laughter at the site of me helping their baby sister hurl into a scented diaper sack lining the empty zoo refill cup.

Or how about after our first night in the hotel room, in the early morning before everyone was awake, the sick one started coughing, waking me up out of deep sleep thinking she was throwing up again. I didn't want to wake the whole room, so I bolted outta bed to check on her lying in the sleeping bag on the floor at the end of my bed. I must have got outta bed a bit too quickly, not letting my equilibrium balance out, which caused me to step on her leg under the sleeping bag. Not wanting to crush her little leg, I shifted my weight to my other leg which slipped on the slick surface of the sleeping bag causing me to run myself into the tv cabinet and eventually falling on top, or sort of to the side, of my sick little girl. Thankfully, she thought the view of her sleepy mom flailing about overtop of her was quite entertaining and we both quietly laughed hysterically after I finally rested on the floor beside her.

I don't know? Which of those instances could be made up? None, they're classic, memorable moments that could either drive a mom completely insane or drive her to maddening laughter. I don't really have the time to go insane, so I instead I write them down and then laugh as I recall each bizarre instance, shaking my head at how absurd life can get sometimes when you're a mom!