Single Parent Salute!

To all you single parents and parents who are the main “childcare providers” for your children: I SALUTE YOU!

This past weekend Jayden and I went on a “Tour de West Coast” and we both came back exhausted! Here is our journey filled with fun turns, potholes, and the typical peaks and valleys:

On Friday, Jayden and I awoke at 5am and began packing for our journey. With several breaks for feeding, fussing, and playing, we were finally all packed up around noon with two weeks’ worth of clothes and diapers for her and three outfits for me; the play-n-pack for her to sleep in; a small cooler full of emergency milk, pumping supplies, bottles, and the like; two blankets and several teething toys; a diaper bag full of day to day essentials; a smaller bag with 10 reserve pacifiers, infant Tylenol, thermometer, and etc.; baby jogger; AND my suitcase of a purse. With all of that, wouldn’t you know, I forgot the wedding gift for one of the stops on our tour!

Upon leaving, we were going to make a quick stop at Goin’ Postal to mail a package to our favorite relatives in Alaska ;). BUT, upon arriving, we learned that daddy was going to be stopping by on his way out of town for his own hunting adventure. So, we were easily talked into a quick visit with Trisha, Ruth, and Trisha’s mother-in-law. It was definitely a nice visit.

We finally started our voyage again at 1pm and things were going great. Jayden was sleeping peacefully and there was hardly any traffic. It wasn’t until I hit Vantage that I realized that I need to go to the bathroom and that there was no way I was going to be able to hold it until we got to the wedding. I used the next half hour until we reached Ellensburg to fret about trying to figure out how to use the restroom with Missy J. Finally, I just decided to stop at the Pita Pit because they had a huge single bathroom and just bring her in with me. The restroom was only slightly stinky, but it was enough to cause her to make the funniest faces. I wish I had brought the camera in with me… but who really brings a camera into the bathroom with them???

Since I felt bad about using the Pita Pit’s bathroom, I ordered something to eat and shoved it down into my already full stomach (which made a nauseous car ride) before we headed back on our way.

Now that Jayden was fully awake, she was not pleased about being put back in the car and made herself known. She began to fuss loudly and I couldn’t seem to do anything to appease her. I tried passing toys back to her and refilling her mouth with pacifier after pacifier (I did bring 10 after all). Finally, after an hour of unappeased fussing, I decided to take an off ramp to find a place to get out and stretch our legs and take a nice long break from the car ride.

Much to our delight, we found a friendly church parking lot easily off of the exit we chose. After several minutes stretching our legs, Jayden was ready resume the journey. I was feeling fortunate when she immediately fell asleep. I was feeling decidedly unfortunate when I realized that the off ramp that we used did not have a corresponding on ramp (!!!). It took us 45 minutes to find another on ramp!


Just as we found the on ramp and continued on our way, Jayden woke up. (Insert ominous music). Luckily she was almost content to play with her toys as we maneuvered our way into West Side rush hour traffic (that we would have missed if we hadn’t gotten lost for 45 minutes). Slowly we creeped along until we made it to Puyallup and arrived just in time for me to change Jayden and feed her before the wedding began.

I was SO delighted when friends Kat and James arrived at the reception and immediately passed Jayden into their open arms so that I could take just 15 minutes to myself to gather myself from the draining journey. It was brilliant. Meanwhile, Jayden, thankfully, seemed completely oblivious to the stress that her mommy had just undergone. She was even happier when I found a spot in the back, on the floor, to layout her blanket so that she could stretch her legs a bit and roll a bit. (I know, classy).

The reception was beautifully decorated with fall colors and they served really delicious sugary cupcakes. The bride was also beautiful and it was such fun to take a picture with all three of us girls. We now have “identical” pictures of for all three of our weddings. How cool is that?

After the reception, Jayden and I journey up to Seattle to spend some time with Karla and Phil. Karla was so sweet and gave me her parking spot so that I would have a place to unload all of the “essential crap” that I had brought with us. Karla is one of those friends that always thinks of everything and makes sure that you are always taken care of. She is definitely the “hostess with the mostess.”

Jayden was exhausted when we arrived and she immediately went to sleep, which allowed Phil, Karla, and I to spend the next couple of hours talking. Finally, I had to say goodnight because I knew that Jayden would be up in 5 hours at 5am and wanting to play, but I could have stayed up longer visiting.

As it turns out, Jayden actually got up at 3am and wanted to get up for good. After feeding her several times and trying to put her back down, I finally gave up when she started giggling at my efforts. Somehow she thought that my haggard look was funny. Great. So, we stayed up until I could get her to peacefully fall asleep at 4:30am. Since she had fallen asleep in the bed with me, and I so desperately wanted to sleep, I broke my cardinal rule and I allowed her to sleep in the bed with me. (I am terrified of suffocating her with the blankets). BUT, praise be, we then both slept in until 8am!! It was awesome.

Equally as awesome, Karla and Phil made a DELICIOUS French toast breakfast and accompanied it with fresh farm eggs and fruit. I ate until I was STUFFED. I couldn’t believe how much I ate, but this was truly a high end restaurant quality breakfast that I got to eat in my PJs.

After breakfast, Karla, Jayden, and I hunted down several venues that Phil and she were considering for their upcoming nuptials. We found some very cool and rustic spots and we actually may have discovered the “winner.” The only thing that she needs to find out now is whether the venue will allow them to bring in Phil’s excellent batch of hoppy brew.

The whole time we were out and about in Seattle, Jayden was wonderfully behaved. She was such a good sport as I loaded and unloaded her out of the car/car seat/and stroller. Meanwhile, I was secretly cursing how much stuff I had to lug around with us. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just bring the baby and yourself? Yet, thoughts of the poo assembly line and outfit blowouts were swirling in my head and made me be practical and bring the abundance of baby stuff. I have to admit, that much of that stuff did come in handy… we definitely used the variety of pacifiers, toys, and diapers. Luckily, we didn’t need any outfit changes.

We wrapped up our wedding adventures at around 3pm. After saying our goodbyes, Jayden and I headed to Tacoma to spend time with GG. We arrived just in time. Jayden was really excited to get out of the confounds of the car seat and roll around and scoot on the ground for a while. She was actually delightful to watch, and gave GG and I entertainment for the rest of the evening.

Luckily, Jayden decided to stick to her 8:30 bedtime and I joined her. We were both exhausted. Still, Jayden decided to wake up at 3am to eat. She also seemed a little cold, so I again broke my cardinal rule and allowed her to sleep with me in bed again. Still, that meant that we both were able to sleep until 7am.

After we awoke, we packed up the entire house of things we brought with us, and it in several trips to the car with us as we headed out to meet my Aunty Jan for breakfast. On our way to breakfast, GG insisted that she treat me to a carwash because my car was “just that dirty.” As it turns out, she was right. It was so dirty that the attendants at the carwash sent my car through the system twice because the first time didn’t get it clean enough (!!!). I have to admit, it does feel good to have a sparkling clean car on the outside (now for the inside…).

When we pulled up to the restaurant we discovered “Cousin” Maddy waiting for us in Aunty Jan’s car. She was SO excited and kept wagging her tail in eager anticipation of attention. Maddy is really a pretty dog.

In the restaurant, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast and debated the use of ketchup on good food. I have to say that we ended in a draw. Aunty Jan and I do not believe in ketchup while Granny wouldn’t go anywhere without it… and quoted several other people not in attendance that would take her side.

Also, Aunty Jan was really excited to meet Jayden for the first time and Jayden couldn’t help but smile back at her. We will definitely need to make a trip back sometime soon so that Jayden can spend more time with both GG and Aunty Jan.

After breakfast, Jayden and I headed home. Learning from our past trip, we did make one long stop along the way so that I could get her out of the car seat for a while. It made a world of a difference. She was great the whole way home.

That being said, I am DEFINITELY not going to make this trip by myself again. It was so overwhelming to be solely responsible for little Jayden. She was actually pretty good the whole time, I just became WAY TOO exhausted with her feeding schedule, traveling fussiness, and having to lug around tons of stuff. I am now SO impressed with parents who have multiple children who travel and single parents! You guys rock! As for me, I am now going to be a hermit.