580 Miles - 4 Kids - 2 Days - 1 Minivan

On Friday, June 5th, my Grandma passed away. It was a long time coming... she was 90, in fair to poor health, had alzheimers/dementia, and was just not living a good life. She had been in a nursing home for about a year, year and a half. One morning a few weeks ago, she woke up, tried to get out of bed, and she fell. The staff claims the alarms that she wasa hooked up to didn't go off (for whatever reason), and she suffered a broken facial bone, knocked out 3 teeth, and put 3 teeth through her bottom lip. She was medicated for pain, but wasn't drinking or eating, and died about 2 weeks after the accident.

The following Wednesday/Thursday was when the wake and funeral would be held. In Queens, NY. We were clearly not thinking straight when we decided to bring all 4 kids to NYC; thinking it would be a good test run as to how they would do on a road trip, and sleeping in a hotel. We're idiots.

The packing and organizing and funeral-appropriate attire purchasing went farily smoothly. The trip down to NY could have been better... After stopping for lunch in CT, Gwen decided she wanted ONLY french fries and no chicken nuggets (we don't give the kids fast food often; in fact, it was the trio's first time dining on Mickey D's finest processed chicken); in doing so she overdid it and with the stop and go traffic on the Merrit Parkway, she puked. I thought I was prepared for just about anything, but car sickness had apparently slipped my mind. She was so good about it. From the back seat she just piped up with, "My stomach doesn't feel good. I want medicine." In the next 30 seconds of talking to her about if she was going to throw up, she did. All french fry; practically solid. Which made clean up on the side of the highway pretty easy. It could have been worse. I gave her some Mylicon because as she was crying she asked for medicine to make her tummy feel better, and Mylicon is practically nothing anyway, and made for icky feeling tummies. Whatever; It did the trick until we got to the hotel.

Did I mention that the hotel was in the middle of China town? Like, smack in the middle?? Like, at least one of the hotel guests was overheard requesting the Times in Chinese??? LMAO!!!! It was quite the experience! My parents and my family had an adjoining room so that we didn't have to go to sleep when the kids went to sleep, though we probably should have. Our room wasn't ready when we arrived though, so there were 10 of us trying to get ready for the wake in 2 rooms. Oy vey!!

We went to dinner at the best German restaurant in Queens, Chalet Alpina. Next time you're in that area make it a point to go. YUM!! Following dinner, we went to the wake, where Gwen came up with me to say goodbye to Grandma (or G.G., as all the great grandchildren called her), which was the first time seeing a dead body for both of us. She did awesome, said "bye" in a quiet voice with purple blankie to her lips, and then wanted to go see Daddy. Of course I put her down to go find Tony, but I wanted to give her a small sense of the circle of life, which I never really witnessed, and think it contributed to my deep fears of death and dying. We explained to her that GG was dead and we were saying goodbye to her body so she could be buried next to her husband, yada yada yada... it's hard giving a 3 year old, who asks a multitude of questions, understandable answers on life and death. But we did our best and Gwen hasn't had nightmares and she got a little witness of the inevitable. The wake was lame, as are all wakes, but the kids were outstanding!!! They only fussed towords the end with the prayer service, of course when everone was being quiet and sullen, but it was over an hour past their bedtime, and they had been stuck in car seats and stroller for 90% of the day.

Tess, stuffing her face with the finest German breads:
Once we got back to the hotel Tony and I did a quick set up of the Pack N Plays, changed diapers, fed bottles, put Gwen in bed and headed over to my parents' room to chat for a while. About an hour later Tony decided to go to bed, which is when the crying started. I went in about 20 minutes after that to try and help him control the troops, and he was down to one very teary Tess. Tony went and climbed into bed with Gwen, I snuggled with Tess, who quieted down for Mommy, and we all went to sleep. For about an hour. The rest of the night consisted of security knocking on our door thinking someone had been setting off alarms on the roof and then running into our room, musical beds, kids waking up ready to play at 2 and 4 am, and then finally, my mother kncoking on the door, waking us at 6:45, just 30 minutes before we had to be ready to leave. Ahhhh...

Here are the babies, confined while we got ready for the funeral, in the hotel provided crib (L-R are Nora, Tess and Holden):

Again, the kids did great during the funeral mass and over at the burial site. We had a family luncheon repast and then headed out for the long ride home, which was about 6 hours. No puking this time, but lots of crying. We had stopped at one point to let the kids blow off some steam in a hotel parking lot in CT, after Gwen started complaining about wanting tummy medicine again. Yikes! They had sippies, got fresh diapers, a few bug bites, and got to run around for about a half hour before we called it quits and got back on the road.

Here are a few pics from our rest and play stop. The kids all looked so cute in their funeral attire. L-R on the curb are Tess, Gwen, Holden and Nora:

Gwen, the first one to check out the tree, looking adorable!:

Nora, drinking her milk and playing with rose petals from Gwen's casket flower, that she insisted on keeping just to pull it apart:

Holden and Tess, checking out that cool tree:

Gwen and Tess, checking out that kick ass tree:

Nora, going for a walk:

Overall it wasn't horrible, but you can bet your ASS I'm not going anywhere with all 4 kids in tow, for longer than 12 hours, for a very. long. time. Not to mention that we must have loaded and unloaded 4 kids and 2 double strollers about 20 times in the 24 hours we didn't actually have the kids stuck in their car seats, tossing Gerber snacks at them from the front seats, and hoping they catch a few. Personally, I'm all set, LOL!

Much love,