everything here shakes
shivers
bends
blasts
in fierce gamble
~ Charles Bukowski
I never sleep well in a strange bed. Tuesday night, after a day filled with car trips, an inordinate amount of moms and tots, a trip to the mall and a shortage of coffee, I crawled into a strange bed, my head pounding. I didn't sleep a wink. My headache turned into a full blown migraine by morning. Ouch.
Tired, in extreme pain, I ate breakfast, drank a cup of coffee (lack of caffeine yesterday, was that the cause of my brain pain?), then lied down on the couch. I tried to take a nap with Zoey, no sleep, pound, pound. Finally the woman whose house we were staying arrived with a couple of Advils and some sort of vipo-rub pain reliever, which she massaged into my temples, forehead and the back of my neck. I lied there and waited for the drugs to kick in.
I am not sure if the drugs kicked in, but 5 minutes later I said 'ew, I think I am gonna puke... yep I am gonna, hic, hic..'. Off I ran, hand over mouth, to the bathroom, which fortunately was only about 20 feet away. Boy oh boy did I ever puke. It was like I was suffering from a flashback hangover, it was horrible. Yikes, the impression I must have made on our host. Classy.
The plan for the day, the promise we made to the kids, was to take them to an indoor amusement park called Crystal Palace. Ye gods I was gonna have to get my brain in order and fast! Oddly enough, I slowly began to feel better after a good solid power puke. An hour or so later, my brain and my belly felt well enough to dress the children, pile them into the car and drive them to the amusement park. Yay, and I quote 'YAY!'.
We stopped at a Burger King first. It was around lunch time, I had purged myself of supper and breakfast a couple of hours earlier. I was hungry, the greasier the better, I needed something to stick to my leery ribs. NOM, NOM, NOM, burp! Adequately stuffed with fast food, baby changed and similarly filled with momma's milk, we ran towards the entrance... this was gonna be the best day ever!
First we went on the bumper cars. Might as well test the brain with some bumps and whiplash. Brain held up, belly too. I might survive this day yet. I then took the 6 year old on a bunch of rides that were more his speed. The trucks, a choo choo train, back on the bumper cars, repeat. A quick coffee break, huzzah for Chapters and Starbucks (I scored Bukowski's The Pleasures of the Damned) an amusement park for adults, weeee!
My 10 year old daughter spent much of the afternoon on the rollercoaster, she went around and around and around. This is a girl that gets car sick, but has no fear of rollercoasters, yep, she is an odd one. Anyway, the 6 year old through some taunting and teasing from his older sister was convinced to hop on the rollercoaster, as long as I sat with him.
Up we went, tic, tic, tic. Zach was getting noticeably more and more nervous. Whoosh, off we flew, zoom, zing, around a corner we zipped, hurtling towards a tunnel, that's when Zach lost it. MAKE IT STOP, I WANT TO GET OFF! I was not aware that the coaster did 3 passes, I figured we were about done, I thought I'd get him off, give him a hug, thus limiting the trauma. I was wrong, ZING, we zoomed past the starting point...I WANNA GET OFFFFFFF, AHHHHHHHHH! Poor Zach, the horror continued. Fortunately I was able to catch the ride attendant's attention before we went on a third hellish pass.
Zach shaken up, but no longer strapped into a torture device, simply needed a hug and some orange pop, poof, the roller coaster was all but forgotten... or at least repressed. The father of the world award goes to... bah, forget it.
Three hours or so later, we were collectively knackered. It was time to put food in the wee one's bellies, it was time to make the long trip home. After a short detour back to the place we had stayed the night before, then a stop at a restaurant for some sustenance, we began the hour or so ride home. The baby like the rest of us was over-tired, she cried all the way home. How the migraine failed to return is a medical mystery.
What a 13 or so hours. It began with a migraine, continued with some vomit, lead to some swirling and whirling and was topped off with an hour of driving with an infant crying the whole way. I was told there would be days like this, I was not convinced that I would ever survive it. Survive I did and you know what, I actually had fun. No I am not a fan of migraines, vomit or noisy car rides, heck I am not even a fan of amusement parks... the fun I guess was in playing super dad, maybe it was the 20 minutes of book shopping, I dunno? I am glad I survived and wow am I happy to be home.
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