Skamarakas Family - June 2006

Cast of Characters - Mom Anna (41), and DDs Brighid (14); Eilis (5) and Granuaile (1)

The Sequel - Days 1 and 2

Day 1 will forever be known as "The Day Mommy had her nervous breakdown". We are scheduled to leave IMMEDIATELY following Brighid's final - final exam, which ended at 9:45 AM on Thursday. The deal was we would pack the car and everything up on Wednesday. I didn't factor in things like the fact that my husband was in Boston and wouldn't be able to carry all the stuff out to the car or entertain the baby while I packed stuff. I didn't factor in the last minute sleep over Eilis was invited to at Dram's house (my mother), meaning that Grace would have NO ONE to entertain her for any length of time. I also forgot to factor in the studying Brighid would need to do. Wednesday night came, and at midnight, I was still folding clothes and packing the suitcase. Having been up the night before with a teething baby, I was running on fumes, and not looking forward to the drive the next day.

So, I picked Brighid up from school, I am already stressed that I don't have everything done, and we head home so we can finish up and be on the road by 11 - I hope. As it gets closer to 11 and I start to find all the other stuff I haven't done, I start freaking out. I am panicked over that DC traffic, and now that it's summer, I want to be through DC by 2.

By 11:10, I am like a mad woman. Eilis and Grace have quietly entertained themselves downstairs by pulling out all of the toys I put away so that when Jim walks into the house after a week in Boston, he doesn't trip and kill himself on a Barbie shoe. So I am yelling at Eilis for not playing quietly with the toys I left out. While I am downstairs cleaning up every single Barbie pump, ski boot and sandal, Eilis and Grace decide to make themselves lunch out of the snack box I have packed. So when I am finished downstairs, I come upstairs to find pretzels crushed all over the floor, Pop-tart wrappers strewn about, and applesauce painting the railing that leads to the upstairs.

This is when my eye started to twitch.

Then I remember - I have another kid. Where the heck is she?

Now, any mom to a teenage daughter will understand when I say that I am oh so grateful that I found her, that she hadn't lapsed into a coma from a terrible, sudden onset of illness. I am thrilled beyond belief that she has not been abducted from right under my nose by an unsavory character wandering our neighborhood. I am ecstatic that the alien space ship has bypassed her room in favor of a more interesting teenage specimen. But when I find that she is in front of her mirror, re-applying makeup, fixing the hair that she has already fixed in the car on the way home from school, on the front step as I opened the door, in the dining room as I put the suitcases by the front door, in the bathroom as she is changing into her "driving clothes", it is all I can do to keep my hands from spontaneously reaching out to grab her by that now way too over done hair and dragging her down the steps, out to the car, and dangling my car keys in front of her almost 15 year old nose and saying, "Nyah, nyah, now you don't get to borrow the car until you're 27!!"

Instead, I just take leave of my senses, and go nuts, yelling and screaming and attracting the neighbors. Thank goodness most of them are elderly, and attracting them means they have all peeked out from behind their curtains, and not seeing blood running in a stream from my house down the block, staining their driveways, and then they've gone back to their old person activities.

We are finally in the car about 11:45, and I spend a good 15 minutes praying that there is some magical tranquilizing powers in the Diet Coke I am about to pop open. I feed all the CDs that Jim has made in the CD player, and I tune in the Blue Collar Comedy channel on the new Sirius Satellite Radio my mom has given me. I figure with the caffeine buzz, the music from the happiest moments of my life playing in the background, and Jeff Foxworthy convincing me that my family is not so screwed up after all, I should be okay to at least get across the Delaware Memorial Bridge without killing anyone. OMG - guess what sign is blinking above the bridge when I get there? "If you are in crisis, Call 1-888- some number that will keep you from throwing your kids off of this bridge". Seriously - there is a crisis hotline number blinking across the message board at the bridge. I am being watched out for from the great beyond.

Guess what? I get to DC by 2, and am stuck in a traffic jam that puts me another hour behind schedule. Yep. An hour.

I manage to make it to Lumberton, NC by 9 PM, and we stop for the night. I put my jammies on, and leave Brighid to play with the two littles while I try to get a head start on sleeping. I fall asleep to the soothing sounds of Britney Spears telling Matt Lauer that she is not white trash while her boobs are falling out of the sausage casing top she is wearing, her too short denim skirt is riding up her thighs, and her flip flops are dangling on the floor of her gazillion dollar mansion. All is right with the world.

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