Sleep Training

Dale uttered these two words to an older (childless) couple at church two months ago and they laughed.  They had never heard of such a thing.  Well neither had we people, but contrary to what most assume and what parents wish, babies don't teach themselves how to sleep.  And if yours miraculously did, please exit quietly and don't tell the rest of us because it won't make us admire you, it will make us want to punch you. In the throat. At 2am.

If this seems harsh it's because I am the one wanting to punch the parents of sleeping babies (although I really just want to grovel at their feet and beg them for their secret potion) at 2am while my kid is standing in his crib wailing to be rescued while I'm standing there talking to him like he's an adult. "No sir, we sleep in this house at 2am, we don't cry." 

Let me back up though... I feel like I should preface this "I suck at parenting" post by telling you how the first ten months of his life has progressed.  

As many the entire world knows, we struggled to stay pregnant. We could get pregnant, but we couldn't stay pregnant and that was hard.  It made for a long, emotional road to Brooks.  Once I was able to "stay" pregnant though, pregnancy was pretty fantastic for me.  Aside from the normal heartburn and the fact that I gained the entire body weight of a 1995 5th grader.  (Not a 2014 5th grader, because I've seen those kids and they don't look like we did.  Can you say bra?) I enjoyed being pregnant and for the most part spent months feeling like a kid on Christmas Eve just waiting for D day. 

Delivery day came and it was perfect.  I went in with one goal on my birth plan- GET THIS BABY OUT.  Birth plan success. They put this gooey little ball of love smack on my chest and in within 45 minutes he latched on and nursed like he'd spent the last 9 months practicing on a fake booby in the womb.  Motherhood came totally natural to me.  For the first time in my entire life I felt alive, like I was finally doing exactly what God created me to do. I couldn't care less in those days if I was sleep deprived.  Less sleep meant more time with the baby I had dreamed of my whole life.  The nurses on the floor kept offering to take him so I could get some rest but I refused each time.  I spent those first two nights looking at him, obsessing over his perfection, nursing his teeny tiny belly full, and completely soaking in the full meaning of grace, sacrifice and love.  We brought this tiny little bundle home and continued to live in each moment as he grew little by little.  I couldn't hardly put him down.  We spent those first three months in bed together just learning about each other.  We would play, nurse, nap, and watch endless amounts of Netflix together in those beginning days. At night, he would fall asleep on my chest and I let him stay there.  It was where he belonged in my mind.  He had spent almost ten months in my body, I would let him spend the next six beside or on my body. Dale was completely smitten with him and completely against him sleeping anywhere else than with us.  It was in those moments I learned just how perfect he was for me as I watched him embrace fatherhood.  




Anyways, I say all of that to say this...I totally bombed teaching my baby how to sleep.  When he was 15 days old and I was awake with him at 1am, 3am, and 5am I was so thankful for him that I enjoyed those still nights and thought, I know one day I will miss these.  I just didn't know that I would still be "enjoying" them ten months later.

At 7 months we had finally reached our night waking quota.  I hadn't slept a solid eight hours since before I delivered.  I was spent.  

(Why not give Daddy duty every now and then, you ask? Oh, because I forgot to mention that we were so successful at nursing that Brooks has refused any kind of artificial nipple/pacifier since birth.) 
(You're probably thinking that was another thing I bombed.)
(But I don't.)

So we did the research and decided on a modified version of the big bad cry it out method.  The first night happened by accident.  And by accident I mean I put him in the crib crying because I thought I may actually runaway for the night if I didn't. He cried for 22 minutes.  It was BRUTAL.  I won't sugar coat. It was so bad I actually threatened Dale that if he didn't back away from the door I was going to latch Brooks onto his nipple for the duration of the night and lock myself in the spare bedroom.

Night #2, he cried for 3 minutes. 
Night #3, 30 seconds.
Night #4, no tears.

On these nights he would sleep 7pm-4/5am. Nurse. Back to sleep until 6:30/7am. HALLELUJAH! We did it!  Holy crap. We waited 7 months to do this? We are such first time parents. Total rookie mistake.
 
And it lasted for, eh, a month? And then came teeth.  And then came sitting up in crib. And saved the best for last.... standing in the crib!  All of these things allowed me to offer an excuse for him.  I wasn't going to expect him to sleep through teething pain so we've allowed all of the sleep crutches to slide back in.  

Which brings us to now. June 2014. Brooks is closing in on ONE and I still have yet to sleep a solid 8 hours.  Alas, here we are sleep training again.  Night #1 was good, Night #2 was bad. Tonight is Night #3.  It's a totally different ball game with a baby who can stand.  So no more crying.  Now it is coercing him to stay on his back, with his puppy dog in hand, and a thunderstorm in the background.  

 Three things sleep training has taught me that you need to know:

1. DO NOT ask new parents if their baby is sleeping through the night.  The AAP considers sleeping through the night a 6 hour stretch. I don't know about you, but 2am is not morning in my house. So a baby who sleeps 8-2, is not REALLY sleeping through the night. New parents feel like a sleeping baby is a badge of honor and therefore may actually lie to you and say their baby is sleeping through the night so you think they're a good parent.  True story, I read that in a Parenting magazine.  By that standard, I am a bad parent. Oh well.

2. DO NOT tell a breastfeeding family that they should feed their baby formula, baby cereal, or solid foods so their child will sleep through the night.  This is false information.  Brooks has been eating three solid meals a day of regular non-pureed food for 2 months now plus nursing on demand.  He is FULL, and still will not sleep 12 solid hours like "the internet" says he should.

3. DO NOT offer stories of all of the wonderful parents you know whose baby has been sleeping in their own bed, for 12+ hours, since coming home from the hospital.  This story is crap anyways and that family is lying to you.  Ok, I kid.  That story may be true. If they're buying stock in Benadryl.  Regardless, sharing other people's success stories is not encouragement.

What I've learned about pregnancy, childbirth, a raising a baby is this... everyone struggles somewhere.  Some can't get pregnant, some have horrendous deliveries, some have nursing struggles, some have sleep struggles.  We all struggle somewhere.  If we could encourage each other based on our own strengths I think we could really help each other.  So next time you see a new Mom struggling, be an encourager to her...don't antagonize her. She may be sleep deprived and since she can't shake her baby, she may shake you.

Spirit Lead Me

This post is a long time coming. Some nights I lay in bed trying to fall asleep and I write these posts in my head and tell myself that I will actually type it out tomorrow and post.  And then tomorrow comes, but the post never does.

I realize I posted a lot about our infertility struggles and then stopped when pregnancy finally came for us.  I feel a bit guilty for this...like I cried out in pain but never in joy.  This wasn't my intention, it's just that my labor or love then became a 120 plus page pregnancy journal which I printed after Brooks was born. Something that I knew would be tangible and not just words floating around the internet that people may or may not even want to read.  Now, catching up on pregnancy, delivery, and ten months of life seems daunting and so I'm going to skip it.  A quick trip to my Instagram can catch you up on that. 

I've never been quite sure what I wanted out of this blog or what my purpose was for it.  A lot of times it's been a place for me to share in my journey.  A place to unload my deepest emotions and lay them bare in desperate hope of healing.  Then after becoming a Mom, I wondered if there was a place for me as a Mommy Blogger.  I had plenty of funny stories of the misadventures as a new Mom.  Ones that I would type in quick notes so I wouldn't forget them. But who has time to blog when you can instead spend your days staring at your baby? Not me.  I would read other blogs. Single girls. Older Moms. New Moms. Newlyweds. Baby blogs. Lifestyle blogs. Christian blogs.  Still not sure of where I fit I continued to put it off.

But enough putting it off. Enough worrying where I fit. The only thing that matters is that I continually feel led to write and I constantly ignore the leading coming up with any excuse. So today I'm jumping in. I just needed to type something and hit publish. So here it is. I don't know what is to come, but it is coming. 

Lefty Life Lessons

I am constantly amazed at how a change in perspective can teach you a lesson.

 

Today, as I was working on my Malachi study, but the fabulously hilarious Lisa Harper, I was given this fresh outlook on why God makes us wait for things.  Things that take a long time to be created and even in the end of the wait, don't come out looking like what we'd hoped for or expected.

 

The activity was to write Romans 5:1-5 out on note cards.  Eh, that's easy enough.

 

 

Except you have to write it out with your non-dominant hand. So for me, left.  (I now have the mark of the lefty for the rest of the day-pen smudge on my pinky) Huh, well isn't this going to be interesting. I knew it would be difficult, but I didn't expect it to be so time consuming, and even more surprising, painful.

 

Writing 5 Bible verses with my left hand was legitimately painful. My neck was cramped from the tension of forced concentration (right hand writing is natural, left is forced), I was flushed in the chest (common symptom of mine that relates to stress, frustration, or anger), my hand was sweating and beginning to ache, my lower body started to feel funny as I realized my posture was completely out of whack because I didn't know how to hold my body, let alone my hand.  Then my feet started tingling! Don't ask me how my feet relate to my left hand, but somehow they did. Or maybe God just wanted to throw in the extra tingle for dramatic punch. (He's good like that) When I finished, I looked up at the clock and it had taken me 16 minutes to complete! Woah!

 

As I was writing I kept thinking, I wonder how long it will take me to write it out with my right hand?

 

So after a bathroom break (hey, Baby Hall is the boss) I returned to try it again with what is comfortable for me.

 

5. FIVE. Did you hear me?! FIVE minutes later I was finished! My hand didn't ache, my chest wasn't flushed, my feet weren't tingling, but I was finished. Why on Earth would a righty ever attempt to write something with their left hand? The truth is, they wouldn't. I wouldn't. You wouldn't. Why? Because it's too time consuming. It takes extra effort. Concentration. Posture change. 

 

Ah hah.

 

It was so clear to me (unlike the letters on my left handed verse) that God intentionally takes us out of our comfort zone so that we can learn something about ourselves, about Him.  He knows we need a slow down. Something that allows us to take the attention off the prize of perfection and realize that it doesn't always have to be pretty, or perfect, or legible. It just has to be real. My normal handwriting or my lefty handwriting neither one change the words of the verse. They have no effect on God's words. Just like the wait doesn't change the fact that God loves us and that His best intentions are for us. It just means that sometimes, we need to slow down to appreciate the process and know that when the ending isn't our idea of perfection, that God's Word and his word are still true for us. 

 

Sometimes God makes us sweat. Makes us tingle. Cramps our lifestyles and changes our focus. His intentions are never to hurt us, but to strengthen us.

 

Romans 5: 1-5

Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we ahve peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.  Because of our faith Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved priviledge where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.  We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthen our confident hope of salvation.  And this hope will not lead to disapointment.  For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.

Trust

God says trust.

Psalm 62 keeps sticking out to me.  David wrote this Psalm and to me, He is one of the most relate-able bible characters.  I think because he really loved God, he just lost the battle between flesh and spirit so often.  I feel a lot like David most days.  Wanting so desperately to be this spiritual giant for God. Campaigning for what He's done in my life.  I want the work I do to be purely for Him and His glory and not my own but I struggle with pride and wanting the praise of mankind when I should only be seeing the praise of my God. My Savior.

Lord Jesus I pray that you take the focus off me and place it on You.  I beg that my life be glorifying to you.

My words.

My actions.

My thoughts.

My dreams.

I wait quietly for you God, my victory comes from You.

You are my rock.

My salvation.

So many enemies...

 

Satan.

My own brain.

The world.

All trying to kill me spiritually, mentally, emotionally.

My hope is in you, Lord.

I will not be shaken.

By doubt.

By fear.

Victory alone comes from God. I will trust you at ALL TIMES. Even when it's hard. I will pour my heart to you, my refuge.

Oh Lord, you know my anxious heart.  You hear my thoughts and prayers.  The deepest longings of my soul.

Jesus I give it all to you.
I owe it all to you.

I need rest that can only come from You.

Crazy Ever After

Over the years, I’ve heard people (mostly pastors) warn couples with children that you can so easily slip into being a child centered marriage instead of a Christ centered marriage. I always found this so interesting, that somewhere deep entrenched in the life of practices and school that you could actually ignore the fact that “Dad” or “Mom” who used to be just your spouse, would suddenly lose that priority and fall into a deep abyss to only be found after the kids went away to college. 

It wasn’t until one sunny afternoon drive home that it dawned on me.  You don’t have to have children to have a child centered marriage.  It is in these moments of solitude that God speaks to me through the most profound thoughts that just appear.  I am awakened in these moments to truths so deep they make my heart hurt.  They shine a light on a dark place in life that I shamefully realize is pointed directly at me. 

My life.

My marriage.

Child centered?

How so, we have no child to blame this chaos on?

This disease.

"My daugher, you don't have to have children yet for this to overcome you." Says my King to me as I antagonize over this truth.

I start to cycle through, thoughts flood my evening commute.  My man and I have spent our first precious days as a married couple plagued by this disease.  And let me tell you, it is flesh eating, life sucking, full blown love strangulation. 

Life became all about baby.  The baby we had, then lost.  The baby we had, then lost.  I wish that repeat was a grammatical error, but you know just as my heart knows, it’s not.  These unplanned babies conceived out of pure newlywed love took over our lives and changed us forever. 

Let me tell you what happens to those beautiful moments of undying love and sacrifice that you vow with tears welled in your eyes and the dreams of happily ever after when you take Christ out and put child in…

You want to wring each other’s necks.

Every. Single. Day. 

Over the silly things! Of all the challenges we face in life, you begin to act like a crazy (woman) person because cups are on the bottom rack of the dishwasher instead of the top rack.

And coffee makers.  Oh dear. A Keurig gets threatened to sail across the room while one you (me) fiercely barricades it to protect itself and your walls. 

And where to spend a weekend.  What do you mean sleeping in a one room building with your in laws isn’t your idea of a romantic, relaxing weekend? The NERVE!

You start walking around life aimlessly.  Marriage becomes lackluster because it’s just a title you wear.  You share a last name, but not a life.  You live day by day. Sometimes people say this is the only way to survive a tragedy.  One day at a time.  But those single days, well, they suck.  And Jesus doesn’t tell us that’s how we survive.  He tells us no matter what this life gives us, that He offers more.  That because of Him we have a constant hope.  We have a reason for joy if for nothing else than because we have salvation.  He tells us to keep on praying. 

But even when you know that His Word gives that truth, those days can feel hopeless, and joyless, and like you’re having an out of body experience. 

You spend countless hours reading about fertility, and charting, and cycles.  Trying desperately to grasp some inkling of control so you don’t feel so helpless.  This leads to planning, this façade of control.    

All of the sudden your planner becomes your bible.  It holds your body’s deepest secrets and rhythms.  You pee on a hundred sticks a month and you take pictures of them to compare the next day to the one before.  You start conversations with things like “My LH surge is peaking today” and ask your husband crazy questions like “Do my boobs look different today than yesterday?”  And then you do the unthinkable.  You plan baby making.  Not the weekend rendezvous that your husband doesn’t know about kind, but the OMG WE HAVE A LIMITED WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY HERE AND YOU HAVE TO BE HOME, MOVE THAT SILLY BUSINESS TRIP AND BE HERE BECAUSE WE CAN’T WASTE EGGS!  I ONLY HAVE SO MANY, I’LL NEVER GET ANYMORE kind. 

 

It’s official. You have the disease.  You don’t even know you have the disease because you’re so far in the deep end you can’t see the shore. 

Then one night it all comes crashing down.  Every thing around you crumbles.  You can’t chart any more.  You can’t keep being psycho over inanimate objects.  You can’t fake it to the world and yourself and your spouse anymore.  You just can’t do it.  You are broken and hurting.   You have to get help.  Not the medical kind, but the Jesus kind.

 

For us, that help came through a Spirit led coupling with G & T.  This unbelievably invaluable and amazing married couple of 30 years who were so much like us that it sometimes felt like looking into our future.  A couple who had been through loss and infertility.  A couple who had two beautiful grown daughters.  A couple who lived on a farm.  (Ok, so that last part doesn't matter to our journey, unless you know our dreams of horses, chickens, and bee hives.) But this couple who knew how to help us work through slamming doors, silent treatments, and button pushing.  They knew how to get us back to the newlywed phase.  And with one simple question our whole life changed. 

 

"Have you guys talked about taking a break?" G questioned gently.

 

I sat there pondering for a moment. What a novel idea.

 

Meanwhile, D is thinking it might be time to bail on this whole mentor thing.  Break? Like, separation? (Oh, my sweet extremist, not so literal.)

 

Break. Like a set amount of time where a couple might throw away things like pregnancy tests, ovulation strips, progesterone injections, fertility books, and all other things baby.  (Don't stress, I didn't throw away $20 worth of pregnancy tests or the half closet of Ralph Lauren Baby.)

 

I never expected this recommendation. To be honest I didn't know what to expect.  I wondered for days what they would say to us, what their solution would be.  I shouldn't have been surprised that my extrodinary God worked through an ordinary married couple. I feel myself smirking as I look to Him, you never cease to amaze me, I quip. In my heart He's responding with a wink, reminding me that He always is carrying me along, even when I feel like I'm dragging myself through life. Like He's done so. many. times.

 

We left feeling like this huge boulder had been removed from our arms.  No more carrying around saddness.  No more bitterness. No more anger.  Sweet mercy, we were not going to let our marriage be centered on baby, we were declaring our marriage to be centered on Christ.

 

Can I tell you what a difference that has made? 

 

We are genuinely happy.  We are playing again.  We are silly, and laughing, and consumed with enjoying the hundreds of blessings God pours out on us daily. We are us.

 

This first year isn't anything that I could have ever dreamed it would be. 

Somedays I feel like it's better. 

 

Somedays my blinders are off and the enemy moves in to remind me that seemingly everyone around me is welcoming a baby to their family.

 

But every day, I get to wake up knowing that God is shaping and molding my heart so that I can further glorify Him.  This is Kingdom work, ya'll.  I don't know yet where this journey of infertility will lead, or where these lessons learned about marriage, and friendship, and the love of a Savior will come into play... but I do know one thing for sure; God is at work.

 

G & T- if you ever read this, please know how deeply we love ya'll and your authentic approach to marriage mentoring.  Our time with you will forever be a part of us.  We thank you for answering God's call to the marriage ministry so that you could touch our hearts and save us from ourselves. 

 

"So let's not get tired of doing what is good.  At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up." Galatians 6:9

A Letter To My Husband

It's like I'm dancing around the house in a dress and pearls with a smile on my face but underneath the facade my skin is decaying and my heart is slowing because inside I'm dying a slow death of guilt, anguish, confusion, pain, and frustration.

When no one is looking though I take my dress off, I lay my pearls in the box and the one man who is supposed to get the best of me gets the worst. My tongue lashes at him when he offers to help me do something, my eyes roll so hard they almost fall back in my head when he does something "his way" instead of "my way."

When I lay to sleep at night I can't feel him touching me because I've rolled over and shut down, not ready for another night of scripture reading or prayer that feels so empty because my heart is so empty.

I'm scared for him to see my heart, because if he does he will know that it's different, he will know that it's not what it was the day he met me, and it's not what it was the day he married me, and it's not what it was the first day we took that test and it was positive.

It's not what it was the day we watched an empty ultrasound monitor, it's not even what it was the day we watch a motionless ultrasound monitor.

It's worse.

It's dark and twisted and jaded.

My pearls look so pretty with my work clothes. They look good with my swimsuit. They look even better in my new house.

I cover my pain with the excitement of a new job.
I cover my pain with a vacation.
I cover my pain with a new house.

Baby clothes hang in the closet, but office furniture sits in the room.

I can't cover the pain when no one but him is looking. It spills out. It erupts from my body with foundation rocking force. Sometimes it doesn't erupt at all, it simply boils deep inside and forces silence. This silence builds a stone wall between us that makes me wonder how it will ever break down.

Couples entrenched deep into the joy of pregnancy are surrounding us. Their excitement is contagious, yet temporary. Each time the story breaks I feel the sting. The twinge of pain deep in my heart that crys out to God, why not us? I am fearful they will see the hurt wash over my glazed eyes, I don't want them too for I fear they will feel guilty for their joy and I cannot be responsible for stealing it. The emotions compound one on top of the other until I feel like my pearls are strangling me.

I spit hurtful tones at the giver of my pearls. He swallows them and looks at me with a rage in his eyes that I've never seen before and couldn't once imagine was in him. I have brought this out in him. This crazy.

I realize the rage in those eyes is his pain that I've failed to acknowledge. He isn't a father any more than I'm a mother and in that moment if I could have seen those eyes as hurt instead of anger I might have changed my tone. I might have backed down. I might have grabbed tight of his hand and pulled him to his knees and cryed out to Jesus to break this wall we've built.

I might have realized he isn't my enemy, he is my friend. I might have remembered they weren't just my babies, they were our babies.

I might not have drank so much wine that night.

Rebelliouness rises up within me with such force that I stop guarding my heart. I start letting stuff back in that pushes Jesus out.

And night after night, in my pretty little gown, in my king size bed, I fall into the blissful sleep where I can forget all that has happened in the first year of our marriage. Where I can pretend that Satan isn't creeping in and trying to destroy. Where I can dream of a new day that I don't wake up and wonder how the man I fell so crazy in love with and married in less than half a year has become this body that I walk through life with motionless.

I wake up and realize it won't go away. I can't continue to avoid it. I can't continue to be strong. I can't continue to walk along and allow people to think that just because I'm wearing a dress and pearls that I'm gracefully handling the turmoil seated deep inside my soul.

I want to go home. And strip it all off. To let him see me without my pearls. Without my dress. To hold me as tears well up in my eyes with so much force that I can't choke them back. To rock me back and forth as I tremble and finally seek comfort in accepting the empty womb.

To seek peace.
To seek mercy.
To stop looking for reasons.
To stop questioning.
To just accept.
To just breathe.

I want to love him. I want to embrace him with that fierce desire that used to consume me about him. I want to feel the way I did the moment he walked in my front door. The moment he kissed me in the car. The moment he fell to his knee. I need to love him like that.

I imagined our first year so different.

If I take my dress and my pearls off, will you pick up a hammer with me and start breaking our wall down?

Cinco de Misery

Today is Sunday, May 6th. That is important, you'll understand why later.

Our road trip began Saturday, May 5th at 9:30 am.  Actually, the trouble began about 6:30 the night before.  I feel the need to document this epic trip now before I forget all the details.  Who am I kidding? It will take years of therapy to erase the memories of this trip.

It all began as I left the house Friday for my requisite manicure/pedicure before vacation. It was 6:30 on Friday eve, I am already in a semi-irritable mood over who knows what at this point, and I jump in my car, kiss my husband goodbye, and turn the key. Nothing. Nada. No lights, no sound, no action.  You have to be kidding, I never leave the key on, did I leave the key on? My husband thinks I left the key on. No big deal, we'll jump it off the other car.  No time though, gotta be at salon asap as Mom is waiting on me.  Jump in the other car and head off. 

TWO HOURS LATER I finally leave the salon. A relaxing appointment that should have taken an hour tops takes double.  The shellac polish on my nails keeps bubbling and the sweet nail salon owner is a perfectionist and refuses to let it slide.  He paints them, dries them, removes it. Rinse and repeat atleast four times. I am slightly dissapointed in this process as there have been countless other patrons come and go for practically the same services in half the time.  Mom leaves me, she's been finished for an hour.  He finally completes and I get a $10 gift certificate for my trouble, even after my famous last words; "Please, don't worry, I'm on vacation starting today, there isn't anything at this point that could stress me out."  I am conviced the devil heard me say those words.  And I had to chew on them ALL DAY yesterday.

I run to my parents to get my dresses for our trip, I stop and visit my grandma, I think I have everything I had on my list to get from my Mom's.  I get home and realize I got everything on my list from there except the main reason I went there, my DRESS! Seriously.  Ok, fine. I'll just run back over.  We load the entire car.  Then we put the bike rack on and the bikes. Done, ok I can put the dress in the backseat and we'll be ready to hit the road at 5am.  I turn the key. Nothing. I can see the stress wash over my husband's face.  We jump the car, again.  I drive to my parents. I shut the car off multiple times and it always starts.  Just a duplicate fluke, right?

It's almost midnight and we're laying in bed.

"There's no way I'm getting up in 5 hours to drive 12." Dale claims.

"I'm okay with that, let's just sleep until you wake up and we'll go." I reply, knowing that he'll most likely be up by 7.

"I'm going to start the car in the morning early and if it doesn't start I'm going to get the battery replaced instead of jumping it."

"Okay."

Storms through the night are terrible, and so I sleep like a rock. I wake up at 5:30 to the sound of the car starting.  I lay there a minute wondering what he is doing.  It started, so should I get up and shower? Maybe not. It is pouring the rain, we should wait until it stops.  I'll just lay here until he comes back in. ... Okay maybe I won't he's taking too long. 

"Did it start?"

"Yes, but it was so weak sounding. I want to replace it."

"Okay, let's go back to bed and we can replace it when the dealership opens."

So we go back to bed, Dale gets up at 7:30 and heads out to get the battery replaced.  By 8:30 he's back, and I'm in the shower.  Mind you, during all of this we've had to remove the bikes and unpack the trunk because the battery is in the TRUNK! By 9:30 we have reloaded the entire car, checked every window and door in the house (twice) and are ready to go.  We hit the road and I tweet this:

"Two bikes, one dog, the Bible, and a 9mm. I think this is what you officially call locked and loaded." 

I was feeling so clever, I read it aloud to Dale.  He chuckles.  I mean if you've got eachother, your
baby dog, the Word of God, and a weapon what else do you need?

Fast forward three hours. This pops up:

We look at eachother in bewilderment.  What? Overheat? Why? How? Weird.

Dale immediately begins to melt on me. "First the battery, now this!"

"It's not that big of a deal.  The battery has never been replaced, the car is six years old, it's expected.

This is just a coincidence." (As I'm saying this it's ringing in my head that Uncle Ed says there's no such thing as coincidence.)

We stop, we decide to eat while the engine cools.  Then we'll be on our way.  We start the car, the message is gone.  Dale is insistent on stopping at an AutoZone to check the coolant.  We do.  It's full.  We are good to go.  Back on the road we go.  Fifteen minutes later it pops back up. 

We pull over.

We turn off the air conditioner.

You can feel the stress enveloping the air.  It's so thick I can hardly breathe.  Oh wait, that's just the heat.  We're back on the road, message is cleared but windows are down and the heat is blasting at 80 degrees with 90 degree fresh air blowing through the windows.  I'm beginning to sweat, but it's no big deal, this too shall pass.

It happens again.

And again.

We call BMW. The closest one is Chattanooga.  We're one hour away and they close in one hour and thirty minutes. I am praying in my head the entire time.  We can do this. 

No, we can't.

We make it 30 of the 50 miles.  It keeps doing it. Dale is panicking that our engine is going to blow.

We pull into a RaceTrack gas station in Georgia.  One of those little spots where you're in one state but you cross into another for a brief moment.  Dale calls AAA and the roles have suddenly reversed.  He is calm. He is handling business.  I on the other hand am melting.  Physically and emotionally.  Tears well in my eyes as I dial the rental car company.  I realize I'm not about to cry over the car situation, I'm about to cry because I'm sweating so bad that my clothes are literally soaked through all layers. I'm sweating in places I didn't know had sweat glands.  I hang up on the rental car agent after he asks me twice for my reservation number and I repeatly tell him I do not have a reservation that's why I pressed 1 for NEW RESERVATION! So now I'm not only sweaty, but I'm a jerk.  To the rental car representative, to my husband who is trying to be positive. (Seriously, Susie Smiles, since when did you stop having a temper tantrum and get all logical on me?) 

We sit in this heat for 30 minutes waiting on a flatbed.  It arrives.  I almost cry again as I realize we have to take our bikes off again so he can put it on the truck, and then back on again for the trip.  Dale handles it all as I stand on the side of the lot looking like a hot mess.  Wet clothes, yorkie in one hand and fresh fountain drink in the other.  I climb into the back of the truck, with no air conditioner, my dog, my husband, and the nicest southern tow truck driver ever.  He talks incessantly and I can't even hear what he is saying over the engine of his truck.  I call my Mom.  I mean what else is a girl to do in this situation?  She makes me laugh. I make her laugh harder.  I can do this. Unfortunately this isn't my first ride in a tow truck.  We only have to go 20 miles, I've riden 200 in one before.

The body odor in this truck assaults my nose.  And I'm left to wonder at this point if it's the tow driver or myself.  At this point in the game it could totally be me.  I am cracking up at myself and my attempt at relieving the pain of the situation with humor.  You know, because that's what we do, we laugh it off. 

Our super niiiiice (read that in Dale's drawl) tow driver offers to take us to the airport to pick up a rental car.  In what could only be divine intervention, I had just learned not two hours prior that my sweet friend Cassie now works for Hertz.  A frantic text message and phone call later she has reserved us a car at the Chattanooga airport for $100 less than her competitor.  We make it to the airport shockingly fast ( I may have blacked out from the smell, not completely sure) and I shamefully walk myself in to get the keys.  Not only am I in my janky road trip comfy clothes, but they are soaked with sweat, and in true comfort fashion I am not wearing a bra.   I casually conceal my missing undergarments with Sully in one arm and my LV in the other.  My prayer is answered when I find the Hertz counter is a young female who not only sympathizes with my disheleved appearance, but wants to pet Sully.  She has us in a rental car within 10 minutes.  And not a terrible cartoon car either, but a legitimate full size, four door, sedan complete with new car smell and leather.  Things are beginning to look up.

The BMW dealership is just a couple miles from the airport, we arrive for yet another opportunity to unload the bikes, unload the car, reload the car, and then reload the bikes on the rental car.  At this time we have now officially moved the bikes a grand total of five times.  I take the opportunity to get to the suitcase to dig out dry clothes, my makeup bag, and wet wipes.  With determination I head into the dealership with D as he arranges the service on the car.  In minutes I find myself in an awkwardly exhillerating moment as I stand completely naked in a public restroom.  I have never done this.  This feels weird.  Yet, so good because I am out of those disgusting clothes.  After a quick wet wipe rub down I change into dry clothes, wash my face, and shove my wet clothes into my LV.  I sit in the car and decide while I'm waiting I'll put mascara on, it is sure to make me feel better. 

It is now 6:30pm.  We should be arriving in Jax in 3 hours. GPS says we have 8.  We keep cracking jokes on ourselves, the trip, and the first thing that finally makes me genuinely laugh...

"I feel like Clark Griswold."

I love this guy.  He is the only person I could do this trip with and still have fun.  We have this bizarre chemistry that when one of us throws a tantrum the other is calm.  We didn't realize it until many hours later, but in reflection it is true. 

 We don't have time to spare at this point really so we decide to drive until 8ish and we'll grab McD's.  We find one outside of Atlanta and stop.  We order. I'm filling up my Coke and Dale is adding creamer to his coffee.  Then he decides to add coffee to my white leggings.  I burst into laughter again as I do a fancy dance to escape the scalding coffee, I can't miss it completely and so my right leg is half white/half brown.  We clean it up, we eat, we leave.  I take the wheel as I am determined to find the Mark in me and shave some hours from this trip. 

The moon is full and roads begin to clear.  8 hours drops to 6 1/2, then to 5, and we start making some actual distance.  I'm getting my second wind (as I always do around 10) and the caffeine is kicking.  I'm having a solo dance party in the car and it feels like we're going 100 mph. (For all the jokesters out there, I know I have been known to do this, I was actually only doing 70 this time.) To say a Ford Fusion does not hug the road like a 5 Series BMW is a gross understatement. 

We play the "it could be worse" game for a while.  We do, afterall have so much to be thankful for.  We are going on vacation. I was begininning to feel like we could have hashtagged our trip troubles as #firstworldproblems.

2am finally rolls around and we have finally arrived in Jax Beach.  Relief begins to set in as we realize we have finally made it.  We navigate the streets and find the condo. There is a light on inside. Strange. I pull the lockbox code from the sheet and open it.  It's empty.  I turn around and look at my husband and realize it's his turn to meltdown.  I peek in the door and I see a dog. 

"Well, are you going to call this guy and see what is going on."

I have this sinking feeling in my stomach.  I better check the reservation before I haul off and call the owner at 2am and act like a psycho.  I can't find it on my phone.  No matter what we have to get a hotel.  We leave and stop at the first we see.  It's PACKED.  Dale goes in to see if there is anything available and I use the chance to search for our reservation. I find it.

"There are no rooms available."

"Why is it so packed, it looks like spring break out here tonight, it's May."

"Cinco de Mayo."

"Wait, what is the date?"

"May 5th."

D'oh.

"Our reservation is for May 6th."

Silence.

"Oh my gosh, how on earth did I not realize I made our reservation starting tomorrow. We just knocked on those people's door.  I almost called the owner at 2:30am! What was I thinking we would do?! Why didn't we just stay the night half way?"

"It doesn't matter, we have to find a room. Tell Siri to find us a hotel so we can start calling."

We drive to another hotel off the main road.  It's full but they send us to a different hotel about three miles away. They have one room left.  We take it and drive there. We arrive and there are two cop cars in the parking lot and the hotel is sketchy.  I sit in the car while Dale handles the reservation.  He comes back, we got the room.  It's around back.  We drive around and park.  I load my arms up and we walk in.  There is trash everywhere.  I am not feeling great about this.  Then I realize the room is on the second floor. 

"There is NO WAY we are staying here."

"Then what are we doing?"

"We are not hauling all of our luggage and two bikes up two flights of stairs! I am calling Uncle Ben."

"You're right." (Those words never get old, haha!)

"Why are there no rooms,what is going on?!"

"I told you, it's Cinco de Mayo."

"Exactly! It's Cinco de Mayo, not Cinco de Florida!"

We drive around front, Dale walks in to cancel the reservation, I call my Mom, again.  My Dad tells us the only people who take trips that take 24 hours are called astronauts. Ha. Ha. Ha. I get a home phone number for Uncle Ben.  I call.  We have a place to stay.  It's almost 3:30am. Dale has offically had a meltdown at this point.  I am delieriously awake and energized.  I snap.

"Would you put on your big girl panties and chill out?! We have a place to stay, we can sleep in, you don't have to work tomorrow.  Or the next 7 days for that matter! It's going to be okay, we're on vacation and you are acting like a three year old!"

"You're right, I'm sorry, I'm just so tired."

"So am I! I've been up as long as you have and have driven more than you have!"

We call truce.  It's been a long, hard day.  We are on the same team.  We did it, we got here in one piece together.  We have seven glorious days of relaxation ahead of us. By 4am we are finally in bed.  Exhausted. Sweaty. Short tempers simmering. We dig out a toothbrush. It's all we can do to find one.

We call it a night.

We wake up to this sweet note.  We indulge. In showers, in breakfast, in our own toothbrushes.
And now, just 18 hours later we are sitting in the amazing beach house we rented, listening to the waves crash, blogging, reading, and relaxing. 

History in the making.