The day that wouldn't end

From this point on I'll be breaking the vacation up in to little stories; random bits of my experience, but hopefully it'll still make sense.

I left off with driving up the driveway of my dad's house. We were all tired, cranky, smelly and ready to just relax for a while. I was looking forward to re-introducing Nora to my dad; my brain had this idea that we'd sit around the kitchen table and sip coffee while catching up and easing Nora in to a new environment. My daughter is many things, but “adaptable” isn't really on the top of the list of her more recognizable personality traits. All of this is flipping around in my head when, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a car driving up to the house. A pit starts to form in my stomach as I realize that the car is parking.

People start piling out of the car and I recognize that it's my step-sister and her three daughters. Great. All of my plans start disappearing.

The girls swarmed on the car, grabbing things and dragging them inside the house. Everything was thrown into chaos and I was doing my best to push down the urge to get back in the car and drive off.

I have no issue with my step-sister, in fact, I was looking forward to spending time with her and my nieces, but the timing was awful and put us all on the defensive.

Nora immediately started wailing. The dog started barking. The girls grabbed the kitten. Everyone was talking: I hated every second of it. I know that I talk about Nora's inability to adapt and what-not, but I may not have stated directly that she gets it from me. I don't do loud, or chaos, or new people well at all. It's this awkwardness that makes me so keenly aware of Nora's needs.

Anyway, Laci, my step-sister, stuck around that night. The girls followed me, Adam and Nora from room-to-room. The air was filled with non-stop girl chatter. We were unable to find solace anywhere. I actually had to kick one of the girls out of our guest room so that I could nurse my overly-stressed child in peace. (I tried to nurse downstairs on the couch, but the oldest girl kept taking the blanket off and Adam was going nuts because I was so exposed. At one point she got up to get her youngest sisters to watch the baby “eat her boob” and I just didn't feel that was appropriate, either.)

Dad was also being pestered by the girls and Laci and, I think, we spoke a handful of words. Cheryl, my step-mom, made dinner. Somewhere in all of this I learned that Laci and Cheryl had given the girls permission to spend the night.

Awesome.

I was keeping up the energy and being friendly because I thought that, after dinner, everyone would leave and we'd have some quiet time to settle Nora down before bed. And then we could sit and chat with Dad and Cheryl.

Wrong.

Well, and on top of all of that, dinner wasn't served until eight, which is three hours later than we're used to eating, and the girls yapped through my favorite show. (I know! Death!) After dinner Laci was still there and it was getting on ten and we were trying to get Nora to sleep and it just wasn't happening. There was too much going on and everyone was “helping” and I finally just went upstairs and shut the door on everyone. I have no idea what time Laci left and the girls went to sleep.

I drifted off thinking that things would be calmer in the morning and my nerves were frayed because I'd spend two days in a car and a night in a filthy hotel.

Morning couldn't come fast enough.