Overlay

Despite being the more grounded of the two of us, my husband is quite the optimist.

When he's not being a realist or a pessimist.

When we had first started dating, Jim planned a romantic evening out for us. This included seeing the new exhibition at a museum, drinks at my favorite bar and dinner at a restaurant I had promised myself I'd never patronize again. While Jim's default is to always let me have my way, that night he refused. He drove us straight to the restaurant with me protesting the entire way. When we pulled into the parking lot, he put the car in park, shut off the engine, turned to me and said, "I'm about to give you an overlay experience."

I blushed at his forwardness, but he then explained what he meant by "overlay." He believed that all bad experiences can be redone, with the hopes of having a better experience the second time. So by taking me to a restaurant I'd had a bad experience in, he was determined to overlay it with a good one.

And it worked.

We had such a fantastic date that night, the restaurant is now one of our favorite spots.

While this seemed small, Jim's overlay idea became a substantial component of our relationship. We reexperienced numerous restaurants, various trips and dozens of movies together. But it also became somewhat of a philosophy of our life together: no bad experience is the final word.

Sometimes the overlays were small: Jim re-watching Annie Hall with me and finally agreeing it had merit. And sometimes they were immeasurably substantial: the birth of our second child overlaying the experience of our first.

The experience birthing our first child was a bad one. Incredibly long labor, hours of pushing, extreme tearing (men, your life is a cake walk), excruciating PUPPS rash after delivery (Google image this, but not before dinner), no milk supply leading to my daughter's severe dehydration and readmission into the hospital, the horror of trying to defecate after a vaginal delivery (seriously, as a gender we need to talk about this more), and post partum depression.

The gamut of horrible experiences.

But on the eve of our second daughter's birth, my husband assured me the experience would overlay the first. He even argued the more horrible the first experience, the greater the overlay.

And dammit if he wasn't right again.

I hardly even noticed I'd delivered a child. Short labor, only a handful of pushes, no tearing, no rash, no dehydration issues and I didn't even bat an eye taking a shit after birth. And as far as I can tell, I've even escaped post partum depression. I came home with a quiet, sweet, sleepy baby who politely existed in our lives the first few weeks as if she didn't want to bother anyone. This made me believe I was ready to take on one of life's greatest challenges:

The family vacation.

Because Memorial Day was upon us, we decided that an overnight stay somewhere close to home would be the perfect way to spend our first vacation as a family of four. We chose a town that was a two-hour drive from home. I found the perfect hotel that boasted a beautiful pool and walking distance to family-friendly restaurants. I bought tickets to a science museum and the zoo and made sure the botanical gardens were open over the holiday break.

The night before we left, I packed more brilliantly than I've ever packed before. I had a bag of snacks, snacks that were neither choking hazards nor produced crumbs. I had the all the baby's gear--portable crib, stack of diapers, wad of burp cloths, onesies, blankets, swaddle sacks and lotion. I had all the toddler gear--books, dolls, underwear, clothes, eight pairs of shoes, a sun hat and detangler. I had swim suits for all four of us. I had sunscreen. I had the double stroller. I had chargers for all electronic devices. I even had the f*cking Frozen soundtrack.

The morning we were set to depart, Jim and I stopped for coffee and gas, and were thrilled with ourselves for getting on the road at the exact time we had aimed--and synchronized our watches--for. During the drive to our destination the uninterrupted conversation and peacefully sleeping children lured us both into a false sense of security.

We had a pleasant experience when we stopped for lunch. And the first destination--the science museum--was a huge success. But before dinner, with everyone waiting in the hotel room while I fed the baby, things started to intensify. I felt a slight burning in my right eye. When I took my contacts out (and laid them on the nightstand) I felt no relief. My husband joked that I had pink eye. I laughed, until I looked over at Lowery and noticed her left eye was gunky. And pink.  Luckily my brilliant packing included every single medication in our bathroom, even a half empty bottle of antibiotic eye drops.

I'm not implying that trying to get eye drops into an uncooperative preschooler ruined the trip. But it sure worked up a nice sweat before dinner.

Once the baby was fed, and all infected eyes were treated, we decided to walk to dinner. I had London strapped to my chest, and Lowery held my husband's hand as we strolled out of the hotel to discover it was sprinkling. Slightly.

As we walked, however, the light sprinkle turned into a light rain. One block down. Then the light rain turned into an average rain, in which puddles start to form. Another half a block down. Then the rain started to pick up to the point my husband hoisted our child to his hip, ineffectively put his hand on top of her head to block the water, and started to run. Because I had an infant strapped to the front of me, and was wearing sandals with no tread, I slowed down and clutched onto the brick walls of the buildings we were passing. By the time we got to the restaurant door, rain was falling in a manner that is most often seen during hurricanes. Or movies about shipwrecks.

I'm not implying that getting a little wet on our walk to the restaurant ruined our trip. But it sure cooled us off from all the eye drop wrestling.

When we were safely inside the restaurant, we were told there would be a thirty minute wait for a table. This didn't worry me. In my brilliant packing I managed to bring a small backpack filled with coloring books and stickers to occupy my three-year-old in such a situation. But after we had been waiting more than an hour, all the stickers were placed and all the pages were colored. When our name was finally called, we were taken back to a table which was situated among roughly 15 empty tables. In fact, the restaurant was nearly vacant.

I'm not implying that waiting more than an hour for a table when there were clearly no other people occupying it ruined our trip. But it certainly worked up an appetite for our meal.

Which took another hour to actually get after the waiter explained that the delay was because the restaurant was "slammed." The only bright spot of the three hour meal was a balloon artist who came to our table as we were trying to pay the bill. Lowery asked for a bunny rabbit, which he quickly made to her extreme enjoyment. She was so excited, that she leapt out of her seat to come show me her new animal, tripped over the balloon artist's foot and collided with the concrete floor. She screamed a scream not normally possible from such small lungs. This awoke our infant, who promptly tried to rival her sister's volume. I scooped up my three-year-old and headed to the lobby with both children screaming uncontrollably. With no option, I sat down on the floor to feed the baby while using my one free arm to wipe the blood off of my other child's knees.

The screaming from both children lasted the entire two, wet blocks back to the hotel.

I'm not implying that the extremely awful restaurant experience ruined our trip. But I do think it was responsible for putting all four of us in a pretty foul mood.

Back in the hotel room and in dry clothes, Lowery was beginning to exhibit signs of mental instability. She pulled everything out of every drawer, all the pillows off the bed and then ran into the bathroom and tried to lock herself in. I tried to help my husband with her antics, but I was occupied by our inconsolable infant.

For over an hour I worked to calm my inexplicably crying baby, while my husband attempted every disciplinary tactic ever invented to calm down our wound-up child. Lowery is strong willed and independent. To that we are accustomed. But this night was like nothing we'd ever seen. She had gone Exorcist. Meanwhile our infant child, who had barely uttered a sigh in her first few weeks of life, was screaming as though she'd just realized she could. At one point, the front desk called our room to raise concerns over the noise disturbance. We could barely hear each other over the two screaming girls.

"I don't negotiate with terrorists!" my husband screamed at one point as our three-year-old attempted to stick her head through a coat hanger.

"When is your vasectomy scheduled for?!" I yelled over the high-pitched screech of our infant.

Lowery, who had opened the two complimentary bottles of water and poured them in the toilet, was fighting our demands that she lie down on the bed and go sleep. She cried and screamed and pouted and, to my complete horror, spit. Watching my child, my sweet, typically well-behaved child, literally spit at us made something inside of me snap. And I yelled. I yelled louder than the screaming children. Louder than I've ever yelled. And when I stopped, Lowery looked at me, completely unfazed by my outburst, and yelled back, "I'm just not tired!"

With that pronouncement, she threw herself dramatically on the bed. And as her head hit the pillow, even before the rest of her body had landed, she was completely asleep. My husband and I looked at each other in shock, not even realizing that London had miraculously stopped crying as well and had passed out asleep in my arms.

My husband tip toed over to Lowery's bed and covered her with a blanket. I laid the baby gently down in the crib. And we silently crawled into bed together, trembling while we held each other like Jack and Kate in the icy waters.

I'm not implying that our three-year-old ruined our family vacation, but she kinda did.

The next morning, Lowery popped up looking refreshed and happy. She bounced over to our bed to give us kisses. We rose up like two hungover frat boys to kiss her back. We had taken the zoo trip away from her the night before as a failed attempt to negotiate, which left us with only one remaining activity. The activity that Lowery had been the most excited about. The activity that was making her jump up and down on the bed gleefully laughing. I handed her swimsuit to her and called down to the front desk to check the pool hours. It was only 6:00 am.

"Oh, I'm sorry to tell you this," said the receptionist through the phone. "The pool is currently closed."

"I figured it was too early," I replied. "But what time will it open?"

"You've misunderstood me. It's closed. For repairs."

To avoid another meltdown, we promised Lowery we would let her play in the sprinkler when we got back home. This pacified her and she happily helped us pack. But when we got in the car, Jim and I both cursed under our breath to see the rain clouds ahead.

Ten minutes into our journey home, a mere 18 hours after the trip began, Lowery said she needed to use the bathroom. The last sign we passed said the next rest stop was 30 miles away. Lowery began to cry saying she really needed to go and couldn't hold it. Jim and I contemplated our options, which were to stuff all of London's diapers down Lowery's pants, or to pull off on the side of the road. Neither seemed advisable, so instead we sped, promising Lowery candy if she could hold it. (I wasn't going up for Mother of the Year this trip). When we finally made it to the rest stop, Lowery bounced out of the car and ran next to me holding her crotch. She perched herself up on the toilet and I heard nothing. Silence.

"I don't have to go anymore," she smiled up at me.

Rather than leave her there on the toilet and get back in the car and drive away, I'll always praise myself for deciding to take her with me.

Back in the car and ten more minutes down the road, London began screaming. Loudly. We contemplated our options. Me crawling in the back seat while the car was going 80 down the highway, or pulling off to the side of the road. Neither were advisable, so we drove another 20 solid minutes with our infant screaming--in a pitch reserved for calling dogs--in the background. When we pulled off, I jumped in the back seat, and the moment I placed the pacifier in her mouth she immediately fell asleep.

Back on the road again Lowery softly said, "Ok, I really do have to go this time."

What seemed like hours later, we pulled into our driveway and sat there with the engine still running and rain beating down on the car. Both children were finally quietly sleeping in the back seat. After a few moments of silence, tears began rolling down my cheeks. When my gentle crying became audible sobbing, Jim turned to look at me. At first his face was twisted with concern, but then it morphed into an enormous grin.

"Why are you smiling?" I said, as snot started to drip out of my nose.

"Because," he said with a laugh, "just imagine the overlay."