Round and round

So on Monday morning we set out for our first long car adventure with Jasmine.

We had everything packed up the night before and I even went for a quick grocery run for snacks (because even if you normally don't need snacks before lunch at 6 a.m., you were forced to buy some because hey we are on a road trip). We ate breakfast, fed the little girl and loaded everyone and everything into Jeremy's car at about 7:20 a.m. It was great! Jasmine was happy playing with her toys and we were listening to tunes on the ipod. We were having a glorious time. After a bit in the car, I get out some pears to feed Jazzbug. Now I did my research and several friends said this was a normal practice to feed solids in the car. I put Jasmine's bib on and start feeding her pears. Now pears are one of her favorites, so she is mowing it down as usual. My aim spooning into her mouth while in the car was pretty poor, so I had to do a fair amount of face cleaning. :) So we are trucking along when little miss starts getting fussy. I start changing out toys and pulling out all the stops in terms of songs, etc. The crying starts to get louder and it sounded more fierce. We take the next exit and get her out thinking their might be an air bubble or something. Jeremy's works the bubble out and so we get back into the car to continue the trip. Jasmine's continues to scream and cry. We begin to think that Dallas is just to far away to hear her cry like this. Well she worked herself up so hard and then began to vomit. She eventually vomited everything out. The bad part was that she was strapped in while vomiting, so I would scream to Jeremy to pull over and then we would have to snatch her out of the car seat so she wouldn't choke or anything. At this point we are slightly north of Madisonville and that means we are in the middle of nowhere. We finally get to the next exit and pull her out while we walk around the only establishment at this exit . . . a gas station . . . whoo hoo! She calmed down when she was out of the car and her daddy walked her around the place. We eventually cleaned her up, changed her clothes, cleaned out the carseat and then had to decide what to do next. I mean is she going to cry and make herself sick all the way there and back. We couldn't handle it! We were about 100 miles into our trip and we had to make a decision. We put her back in the car and said that if she cried for the next 15 minutes we would then turn around and go home. Well let us just say that we were home by noon and were dejected and frustrated. You see by the time we got home Jasmine had screamed herself to sleep and woke up like her old self. She ate her lunch and was playing normally. AHHHH! What snap judgement we made . . . we are such newbies! I was cranky and frustrated, so when Jazzy took a nap I too took a nap. Once I arose, we decided that maybe we would give the Dallas trip another try. The whole point of the trip was to visit with family and friends, so we just had to go or we may never attempt again for a long time. We wanted to actually make it this time, so we waited until Jasmine's bedtime . . . yes, we left here at 8 p.m. Can you believe it? My husband was a trooper and the actual brainchild of this decision. He took the reigns of the RAV4 and brought us into Dallas by midnight. Jasmine slept like a champ during the drive and for the rest of the night, so when she woke up the next day she looked perplexed as though she had been teleported to a foreign land. :) We decided that feeding a tub of baby food in the car is not a good idea for Jasmine and that she must be sensitive to motion sickness. We live and learn.

When we got to our first stop, The Mathews home, we were greeted by food and fellowship. My husband and mom were easily convinced to partake in a yummy Indian meal at midnight while I talked to all the girls. We eventually went to bed and continued the food and fellowship frenzy in the morning.

So since we arrived into Dallas 12 hours late, we needed to visit more folks in a shorter period of time. We left the Mathews home after lunch (boy did I stuff myself silly with auntie's yummy cooking). We then when to my uncle Joseph's house and saw the cutest little 2 month baby girl named the most awesome name . . . Jasmine. She was wide eyed and had SO much beautiful black hair. We got to visit and share stories of babyhood. Afterwards we headed to my uncle Varghese's house and visited with them while Jasmine got some much needed floor playtime. Before we left we talked of coming back on Thursday to visit with my cousins aka their children and grandchildren. They also mentioned that my cousin was at his dentists office around the corner and that we should stop in. I haven't seen my cousin James in more than 10 years, so that was an awesome bonus on the way out of town. Next stop was our dear friend the Foley's home. We have such a good time catching up and playing with the kiddos. It is now Wednesday morning and I have been up at 5 a.m. so I decided to write this post while everyone was asleep. I don't have a cord to upload my pics, so I will have to do that later.

More soon . . .