PILOT - OF A TRIP CALLED CHANGE

I can't start a road trip with a dirty car. Who does that? It's like forcing oneself to knowingly agree to sit in a mess, with no escape, for 4 hours. Why on Earth would anyone want to sign up for that? So I always wait until the kids are in bed the night before our trip and I detail the inside of the car. And before hitting the road this time (which was our first road trip with the triple threat.) I made individual entertainment baggies for each of the children. (kday and I prefer to travel sans dvd players and such) Snacks, books, misc new Valentine toys that were like gold nuggets of entertainment, and most importantly - a sucker. Why a sucker? Because when all hell breaks lose 30 minutes before your destination and everyone is melting down and screaming... a sucker does wonders for keeping their mouths occupied so we can travel in peace.  It didn't let me down.

We enjoyed every minute of the sandy red rock hiking spots, the dusty dirty parks and sand lots, and too much fast food. All of which left an epic mess of sorts in the car. There were scattered toys everywhere, crunched up cheerios, spilled apple juice cups, red rock sand dusting every surface, and fingerprints smudged across windows, even layers of clothing that had been pealed off after the morning sun warmed to the afternoon heat. The evidence of our enjoyment had been laid upon every square inch of the interior of the Pilot.

Every time I opened the door my heart would start to speed up and my mind would triage the damage and assess the order of cleaning procedures I wanted to start. But on our last day of vacation,  Kday looked at me and said, "I'm so proud of you! Look how dirty the car is!" He knows full well how I pride myself in driving in a clean car. WHAT!? How is this normal? I always thought his pride in me was for keeping a clean car... and now the reality of change is that he is proud of me for letting go of the control and enjoying the life we're living with these three messy kids. It made me smile. I'm glad he can appreciate and acknowledge what a huge accomplishment it is for me to let the car be a mess and even better, let the kids be a mess. Our kids were the filthiest I've ever seen them, they looked homeless most of the time... but we all had smiles smeared across our face between the dirt smudges. I let the kids eat wood chips at the park and dip their pretzels in the dirt as they would if it was a lick'in stick. Owen would often have a river of dirt boogers trailed from his nose to his lips. And it was all OK. I let go of the natural panic that takes over when my kids make a mess, and I let them enjoy themselves. It was a tug of war between wanting to jump in with a wetwipe and quickly clean them up, and just pushing myself to allow them to explore and learn in a messy way. It was a good battle, and I'm proud to say I gave in and let the filth proceed.

However, ater that night, when the kids were asleep in our grungy 2 star motel... I snuck out to the car with a bag of wet wipes and a garbage can and I cleaned to my hearts content before our trip home in the morning. I'm changing in small ways, like a messy car is part of my road trips now and my maximum tolerance level is shifting farther on the spectrum. However, I still needed to "just clean up a bit" in order to REALLY enjoy the trip home with my fantastic family.

I'm heading toward more change and it's a journey of discovery around every corner. Even the dirt filled corners.