merit badge tale :: Shawn

Have you ever taken a road trip with toddlers? Well, I have and it was not pretty! Shawn from Awesomely Awake (one of my favorite new blogs) tells the story of traveling from Pennsylvania to Georgia with 2 1/2 year old twins. Yikes! 

Shawn, you earned a merit badge! It is in the mail!

The Goal: Pennsylvania to the Northern Georgia mountains.

The Problem: 750 miles one way with 2 1/2-year-old twins.

I remember the day clearly. Our SUV was literally filled to the ceiling with the whole house needed for a week's vacation with twin toddlers. It was an exciting time because it was our first major vacation and first time visiting my mom's new home. She moved to Georgia from Maryland the year our girls were born.

We had everything under the sun to keep them occupied. Goody bags to offer every hour. Toys. Games. Trays. Pillows. A million snacks, lollipops and treats.

And, DVD players that I had borrowed, just in case. We probably wouldn't need them!

We chose to drive during the day and spend the night half way.

{So, in other words, we had two torturous days of travel rather than just one.}

Still in diapers, the girls were surrounded by the worlds greatest things.

I think the fussing began around the 20 minute mark.

By the time we had reached Gettysburg, PA -- not even an hour from our house -- they were completely done.

D.O.N.E

"There, there. All will be well," I told myself.

We set up on the battlefield with a picnic blanket and some lunch. We changed diapers and let them run and play.

And then, back on the road, we popped in a brand new Elmo DVD and all else was calm as calm can be. I still hear those songs in my head from the many times it played.

Two days later -- after some of the longest hours of my life -- we arrived safe and sound in the beautiful Georgia mountains.

I sobbed as we pulled in the driveway, relieved for our road trip to be over.

And then, a week later, we turned ourselves around and did it all over again.

This summer, we're going to do it again for the first time since. But, our girls are older now. And I'm wiser. We'll leave earlier. We may even drive straight through.

It won't be easy but it never is. I mean, some days just getting to school is difficult enough.

We'll do our best. We always do.

Will we bring the DVD players?

Absolutely.

______________________________________________

Shawn Fink is a writer and blogger but is always a Mama first. She is the author of Awesomely Awake, a village that promotes living an intentional, creative and fun life -- with children.

merit badges tale :: Amie

This tale of things not going exactly as you plan comes from Amie in Austraila. Amie blogs about parenting life with twins, toddlers and a teenager here! Can you imagine? 

Our twins have slept in our room from the day they came home from the hospital. At eight months of age my twin boy began to realise that his Mummy was 'on-tap'. Once he realised this he would wake, crawl to the bars closest to my side of the bed and 'growl' until I woke up. He would then smile, sit-up and wait for me to pick him up. After this happened a couple of times I thought "Uh-oh, there's a habit forming here". It was time to move them into a bedroom with their 25 month old brother. We spent a whole weekend dismantling cots, moving furniture and reorganising a bedroom to fit all three children into. The first night went wonderfully well. We staggered the bedtime and all slept through until the morning. Perfect! The next night we did the same, but this time the 25 month old decided to do some cot hopping. We had a Port-a-cot in our bedroom just in case something like this happened...six months later our now 31 month old son is still in that Port-a-cot, in our bedroom. We basically swapped the twins for our toddler!

merit badge tale :: Marnie

Another merit badge tale! This one is from Marnie Craycroft of the awesome blog Carrots are Orange. I can completely relate to this tale : flying with babies, nursing, unrelenting fatigue...read her tale to find out what happened!

We travel a lot with our children. On one occasion we were taking a flight across the USA to visit our parents in New England. At the time our sons were 6 months old and 2 years old. My husband handled our 2 year old, while I handled our 6 month old. That, as many of you who travel with nursing infants know, means "nurse, sleep, nurse, sleep,
nurse, sleep". Well, typically that means the baby, not me. On this occasion, however, I fell asleep while nursing and I fell asleep hard.
I am not sure how long I slept but I do know that when I woke up both my nipples were bare to the cabin with my Glamour Mom tank top unfastened without a care in the world.

merit badge tale :: Danielle

It has been a while since we have shared some merit badge tales. I love these funny (and sometimes sad) tales from the front lines of parenting. This one comes from Danielle who blogs at 52 Brand New where she chronicles her family's adventures as they try 52 new things this year. A mama merit badge is on the way for surviving this poopy mishap!

When my son was 16 months old, he was diagnosed with Toddler Tummy.  This very scientific term means that he had difficulty digesting fruit, and it would wind up exploding out of his diaper shortly after he ate it. We drove from Phoenix to Sedona, AZ, hit a lot of traffic, and were stuck with a screaming toddler in the backseat.  Nothing we did would calm him.  When we reached the hotel, it was after 3:00, so my husband went inside to check in while I attended to Luke.  I took him out of the backseat to find that he had liquified poop up to his shoulders and down to his knees.  I gagged and almost cried, wondering how I was going to clean him and his car seat.  My husband returned from the lobby and told me that the room was not ready.  I marched in, holding Luke at arm's length, and demanded that we go to our room immediately.  The clerk insisted it was not ready.  I hoisted Luke up onto the counter and cried, "If we don't get a room now, I have no choice but to change this disaster in your lobby!"  We were instantly upgraded to a suite and escorted down the hallway.

I did apologize to the clerk later that day.  My husband was mortified.  He said nothing could have been more traumatic for that clerk, not even a hold up!

merit badge tales - Ivey

Ivey at Durango Mom definitely earned a merit badge for her recent momventure. Just wait until you read about her following her kids lead after they had to kill a rattlesnake that was trying to get into their home. It includes garlic and butter. You can read the tale here. I am not sure that I would be such a daring mom - Durango mom, we salute you!

merit badge tales- Jennifer

Jennifer from the wonderful Baby by the Sea blog, wrote this funny, funny tale about how she earned her merit badge - a combo birthday/tantrum one at that! You can read it here. Be warned, it includes blood, teeth, paint and tears. Never a good combination.

merit badge tales- Jennifer

This family looks happy, right? Read about Jennifer's adventures in traveling to Key West in the summer here. It is the sort of story that every traveling parent can recognize...and they earned a travel badge!

Do you want to earn a merit badge? Email your best tale to me (think hilarity or drama) and which badge you think you earned. I might just print it and mail you the badge!

how i earned the travel badge

 My husband and I thought taking our 6, 4 and 2 year old kids on a month long trip to the rain forests of Costa Rica sounded like a really great idea. And for the most part it was. However, there were a few times we felt our lives were really close to the end. Like driving across an ancient banana transport suspension bridge. A newer one was being build right next to it, because the old one was so unsafe (our driver told as as we swung back and forth while stalled in the bridge in bumper to bumper traffic). Or hanging out with wild packs of dogs, or almost running off a foggy mountain at breakneck speed while none of my kids were in car seats (although at the point, maybe it did not matter). You get the idea.

But the worst by far was when our 2yo got stung by a bullet ant while crossing this flooded, landslide causing river. This kid can fall down a flight of stairs and shake it off like nothing happened. So, when he screamed for the next two hours and we carried his 35# body through the rain forest, we were obviously pretty worried. When we were back at the station, the ranger figured out what had happened and was most concerned that his breathing was okay (what? now we were really freaked out). 
 

After lidocane, Motrin and the rest of the day sleeping, he was fine. But we knew that we had pushed ourselves into a new realm of adventure as a family, and as travel seems to do, we came out of the trip stronger than ever.

Share your travel adventures with me at amy at mamameritbadges dot com and you could win a travel badge!

merit badge tales- Rachel

When my 5 year old was a newborn, I cut her thumb nail too close and it started bleeding profusely. I couldn't get it to stop so I called for my husband to get the Liquid Bandage. Keep in mind---my daughter was screaming the entire time. I held up her thumb while he dabbed on the Liquid Bandage, and I blew on it so it would dry. When I went to let go, I couldn't! My fingers were glued to her thumb! And she was still screaming. He then went to fetch some baby oil to put on our fingers to try to separate us. He put the bottle on top of her dresser while he inspected how he was going to do it. Right then, the cat jumped up, knocked the bottle of baby oil into an open drawer, and the drawer and the clothes inside got covered with it!  Eventually, he managed to separate us, but I am still paranoid about cutting the kids' nails to this day.

Rachel

merit badge tales- Melissa

(image lifted, oddly enough, from Perez Hilton)

"After a long day of childcare and kid-intensive activities I had to accompany my son to a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and I wasn't sure if they served alcohol. So I smuggled in some vodka to add to my soda in hopes of getting through the crowded, germy, screaming, sugar-high, kicking-and-screaming-when-it's-time-to-leave experience."

Have you ever done something to help you make it through a kid event? I usually rely on some Starbuck's, but I can see the allure of a cocktail at Chuck E. Cheese!

merit badge tales- Michelle

Check out this funny story Michelle used to win a badge in a recent giveaway with Get Born magazine. I can really imagine this. I might have come close to living it! 
 
"I once showed up for an (adult) birthday party with my sweater around my waist and a sling across my chest because in the ten minutes it took me and my new infant to get out of the car and to the door, my baby had nursed and puked it up drenching my white shirt, pooped and put her foot in her diaper while I changed her then stamped her poop foot on my chest, and I stained my pants with unexpected post partum bleeding!!! I walked into that party like a battle-hardened warrior carrying a plate of cupcakes"

Merit Badge Tales - Catherine

My in-laws were visiting us when our daughter was about a year old. I got home from the office one day to be told "Vivian loves blackberries soooo much! She ate an entire carton of them for lunch!"

Hmmm. Sure enough, that night as I gave her a bath, she stood up in the water, locked eyes with me, and let loose a great loose stream of blackberry-scented baby poop, filled with seeds. It was everywhere in the bathtub, all over her 20 million bath toys, the bath mat, dissolving through the water -- everywhere. She had a very pleased expression on her face; it must have felt good!

My husband said the incident gave new meaning to the sentence "Vivian eats like a bird."

Merit Badge Tales - Erin

When my first child was about 2 months old, we went to baptism class at our church. I remember sitting in the room with the other moms, dads and babies - and I remember that many of the other babies were nestled into their carrier seats - quiet, calm and seemingly perfectly content. Not my baby. He squirmed, he (of course) could not be put down, he cried, he popped on and off my boob so many times I felt like I was performing in a peep show. Finally he settled in to nurse - nice long sucks - you know, the kind that really get the milk flowing... then he popped off. Before I could react, I had sprayed milk all over the back of the poor mama in front of me (you know, one of the ones with the perfectly quiet baby...) Hmmm... baptism by milk?

Merit Badge Tales - Mary

The night our son was born (homebirth) he slept in our bed and now at 14 months old he's never spent a night anywhere else. I wouldn't trade the sleepy smiles, giggles, yawns, kicks, marathon nursing, and snuggles for the anything. However I will admit that the mornings are a bit hectic. I have a bladder that demands to be emptied the moment I wake up but I also have son who's stomach demands to be fed about 30 seconds before I wake up - always. So our morning goes as so:

6:59 a.m. while I am still asleep and my son is still asleep he rolls over and latches onto my breast for breakfast. 7:00a.m. I wake up and realize that I need to urinate NOW! But alas if I interrupt my son's meal he will start to scream and wake up the whole house.So I hold it in which is very very uncomfortable. 7:15a.m. My son is finally done so I slowly scoot off the bed so as not to wake him and run to the bathroom. Ahhhhhh

One morning though, I soon realized that my bladder was not going to wait any longer, not wanting everyone to have to wake up to his screams I did the only thing a mother can do in this situation - I picked up my son and took him with me! He didn't wake up or stop nursing while I emptied my bladder or when I laid him back in the bed. He never even realized that he had been to the bathroom with me and I was just glad that I had not wet the bed.

Merit Badge Tales - Amanda

When my two sons were 3-years-old and 4-WEEKS-old, my oldest son was jumping on the couch, after I had repeatedly told him, "Stop jumping on the couch!" (I was single parenting this particular evening because my husband was out of town, and I had invited my father over for dinner and for some extra hands to help with the 2 kids. I wasn't yet used to having 2 children.) My oldest son continues jumping on the couch, I am running around trying to warm up spaghetti sauce for dinner, feeding the baby, etc, etc. Next thing I know, the 3-year-old has (just like I predicted he would) fallen off the couch and onto a wrought-iron floor lamp with big curlicues at the bottom, ON HIS FACE! He's screaming bloody murder, and I race over to pick him up. Sure enough, he has a deep half-inch gash on his face, that nearly missed his eye by about another half inch. It's bleeding all over the place and he's screaming. To make a long story short, my Dad stays home with the baby while I take older son to the emergency room. He ends up with 4 stitches right next to his, after we had to wait for 3 hours in the ER.

Well, that wasn't the end. Oh no! About 2 weeks later, the baby has a REALLY high fever. It's 5:30 on a Friday, of course, so the on- call nurse says, "We recommend any baby younger than 6 weeks old should see a doctor if they have a fever higher than...blah blah blah. You need to take him to Children's ER." So, we head to the ER. They run a huge array of tests on him, including a chest x-ray (have you ever seen a 6-week old get a chest x-ray? It's like medieval torture.) They poke him with needles, stick in a catheter to get a urine sample, etc. etc. They almost decided to do a spinal tap to check for meningitis, but luckily the doctor has a level-head and doesn't go that far. Another very long story short, they say, "He probably has a virus. Give him some fever medicine, and call us back in a few days to get his test results." The fever went away on its own, and he was fine.

But, don't these things always happen in 3's? So, two more weeks have passed. Baby is fine (we made a follow-up visit to our pediatrician on Monday, just to make sure all was well. It was.) Older son's stitches have been removed by his pediatrician a few weeks ago. I'm at work one day, and I get the dreaded call from day care: Your oldest son has fallen and has a cut over his eye. We think it needs stitches. You need to come get him." I race to pick him up and go YET AGAIN to Children's ER. After a long wait, and having one of the nurses actually recognize me ("Hey, weren't you just here not too long ago?"), he gets the skin on his eyelid (not the same eye that got the other stitches) put back together with skin glue. As we were checking in, I asked the triage nurse if we could get a frequent flyer card, only half-joking. The best part was when my son said, "This is FUN, Mommy! Can we come back here again?"

So, in the course of a few months, I made THREE visits to Children's ER, THREE follow-up visits to the pediatrician's office, and lived to tell the tale.

I can laugh about it now because it was two years ago, but let me tell you, I was NOT happy at the time. For about six months after this, I made my husband do all the doctor visits.

Merit Badge Tales - Lois

Being a young mom the first time I went to the grocery store by myself with my newborn daughter was event I still remember. Loading up the diaper bag with enough supplies to last a week ,off we went. After shopping for a while going up and down the aisles she started crying...LOUDLY.. So I did what came natural ... I picked up my crying babe and left a cart full of groceries in the aisle and drove home.

Merit Badge Tales - Susie

When my oldest son was born 19 years ago, I didn't know a single woman who had breastfed. My mother warned me not to or I might "ruin my boobs". At the time, women were given a shot after delivery to dry up the milk. The same medication has now been discontinued due to the side effects of cause strokes!!! Rory was a few weeks old when I decided I wanted to breastfeed but I was terrified that the medication I'd been given would cause him harm, so I didn't dare put him on the breast. And I was too embarrassed to ask a doctor or nurse if it might harm him.

Fast forward thirteen years and now Rory has a baby sister named Reese. I'm much more educated and enlightened, thank goodness. I now know that the only thing I want my new baby to have is breastmilk but I'm still trying to get the mechanics down. Reese was born premature and very tiny. I'm very large busted. There is a picture of us nursing when she was a day or so old and my breast was twice the size of her head. I just could not find a comfortable position to nurse, even at home.

When Reese was about six weeks old, hubby scored baseball tickets to the Marlin's game. We lived in South Florida at the time and we are huge baseball fans. I spent the first few innings holding my precious new daughter. Then she woke up HUNGRY! This was the very first time we had been out in public for any extended period of time. I left the seat to find someplace private to nurse. To make a long story short, there is no place in Pro Player Stadium to nurse in privacy. When I asked some employees, I was told to go to the bathroom or try the Red Cross Office a half a stadium away. A few minutes later, I was back in my seat trying to extract one breast, leaking everywhere with a crying newborn and juggle a blanket and one 38 H cup bra. It wasn't pretty. Just as the blanket was slipping and I was getting her latched on, we were on the Trinitron in Pro Player Stadium, nipple and all. They were panning the crowd and we were in the "lucky seats". That was the absolute end of me being nervous or embarrassed about public nursing. And it was my first time nursing in public. Quite an "outing"! lol

Two years later, we were blessed with Camden (named after the baseball stadium in Baltimore) and I discovered slings. Now I always smile when I see a slinging momma because I know she's got nekkid boobs under there with a baby attached. 

Merit Badge Tales - Erin

My daughter's name is Lucy - so we obviously had very little choice but to have a "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" party for her 1st birthday! Invitations were a DVD of photos from her first year set to the song (of course!) ... decorations included cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over our heads (from a rented party tent that took up most of our backyard - naturally) ... favors included kaleidoscopes, marshmallow pies and tangerines (what else??!) ... her brother, dad and I donned tshirts with Lucy's photo and the words "look for the girl with the sun in her eyes" (I could cry right now thinking of how beautiful she was!!) ... the cake was made from scratch and piled high with clear rock candy (diamonds!!) ... all in all a big, excessive, over the top, wonderful day! And now Lucy recognizes "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" from the first few notes and screams "My baby song!" then sings and sways along! But would I go to all that trouble again for a kids birthday party? Oh, of course I would ... I will ... I can't wait!

Merit Badge Tales - Angel

I took my son (16 months old) for his second haircut yesterday. The stylist was less than friendly (You think kids' stylists would be EXTRA friendly!) and the cut was taking waaay too long, partly because my son would not keep his head still. So I did the only thing I could think of to keep him from moving: whipped out a boob and starting nursing him while she continued with his hair. His head was perfectly still for the rest of the cut.

Merit Badge Tales - Karen

One morning while still in my nightgown I thought I would attempt to be one of those super mom's by trying to get a head start on dinner.

Our very friendly and happy dog and 18 month old were walking about the dining room out of eyesight but only about 10 feet away so I felt comfortable with getting down to some serious vegetable chopping in the kitchen. I popped my head in the door and my son was giggling and walking in circles around the circular table and the dog was following giving random kisses. I think I smiled at how darn cute it was and then....

I got a little caught up in my veggies and suddenly realized that the doggie kisses had morphed into something a lot more like doggy slurping and rushed into the dining room.

Oh yes, the diaper had exploded in a truly spectacular fashion and had run down his legs dripping onto the floor.

This left a circular trail of liquid poop around the table which both beasts were walking through causing it to become more of a slippery poop track. Both looked as though they had taken a tumble or two since the poop was not confined simply to their feet any longer.

The dog was taking advantage of the situation to have a little snack, which meant his nose, which he was using kiss my son was also covered in poop.

I was still wearing a long nightgown as it was still pretty early and I stumbled to a halt just short of entering the poop track myself.

I looked at them both and screamed, Sit! Stay! I then grabbed the dog, enclosed her in my nightgown without touching her and ran to the downstairs shower...took off the nightgown over my head with the dog still wrapped in it and dumped her there. Looked her in the eye and threatened her life if she moved.

I ran back up naked in front of the many large open windows 8 feet from the sidewalk and grabbed a beach towel which I wrapped my son in and sprinted to the tub. I washed him and rinsed out the tub in between 3 times. Still naked I put him down for a nap and went down and gave the dog (who was still frozen in terror) the same 3 bath treatment and then put her in the yard...where she promptly rolled in raccoon poop. She got her 4th bath.

I was then left to scrub the dining room floor, three times of course (using toothpicks to clean the cracks in the hardwood floor) and then sporadically thereafter until I managed to put enough distance between myself and the poop to act like a normal person again.

I threw out the pajamas. You really can't make this stuff up...and they probably wouldn't allow it to be shown on TV.