We had a few days off and I wanted to go see my best friend and her new baby. So Chris paired this with a visit to another family we’re friends with and a trip to DC. This still sounded manageable, but a couple days before we left he called up our friends in NYC and added the Big Apple onto our trip as well. Now, I should have been alarmed, but that man can talk me into anything.
(To preface this trip, all of us had been sick with some kind of stomach bug the week before. But it seemed to clear up in 24 hours, so it shouldn’t have affected our trip in anyway.)
We set off with great excitement on what Isaiah dubbed a “Family Adventure”. First stop was New York. We did a whirlwind drive through tour of the city and caught up with our friends. The next morning, as we were about to hop in the car, my son developed a bought of diarrhea. Mind you, this is a good 4 days after his “24 hour bug” had been all cleared up. We got that situation as under control as possible and set out on the next leg of our journey.
I had already nixed DC from our trip, since I wanted to relax and didn’t think two major cities in two days counted as relaxing. So all we had to do was get to our hotel in Maryland, where we could rest, swim, hit the mall, etc.
Chris had specifically chosen a hotel with an indoor pool… which turned out to be closed. Four-year-olds only have two emotions: elated and devastated. So it took awhile to calm Isaiah down, but we promised him that we would make sure the hotel for the next night had a pool.
At least we still had the mall, right? Yeah… no. This was what we call a “po’dunk mall”. I have no idea what that means, but you get the idea. Still, there was a play place and pet store. We were finishing up with the Thomas Trains in Barnes and Noble when the diarrhea hit again.
We made it back to the hotel in sort of one piece. Chris got on the phone with the friends who were supposed to be our next stop and it turned out their whole family was sick in bed too. So they weren’t so sure about a visit. And then Leah decided to stay up all night with an upset stomach.
After our sleepless night, I started to think bringing my children around my friend’s baby was not a great plan. All we wanted to do was pack the kids in the car and head home. But we had promised Isaiah a pool. So we loaded our apparently sick children into the car and set off for a hotel Chris had booked outside of Pittsburgh.
And it was fun! Surprise, surprise, something started to go right! Not only did the hotel have a working pool, they also had an indoor jungle gym and game area. The kids actually slept through the night. The hotel breakfast wasn’t too bad. And kid Imodium? It works!
