Another long one.....

  Another Demke family vacation has come and gone. It's only now 2 weeks later that I have recovered enough to want to talk about it and I have nothing else to blog about right now. This one is mostly for the kids because I want it down on the records so they will know what I dealt with while they were growing up. Everyone thinks my mom makes stuff up when she talks about hard we were on her growing up so I want proof of all this stuff so I won't be accused when the kids get older of exaggerating or having a faulty memory or being nuts. 

Kids- Yes, you were all "that bad". 

  The whole thing was very short and sweet. Which is always just enough for us. I think I will change it to short and SEMI-sweet. Which is also just enough for us.

  Our vacations tend to get squished into weird long weekends and random months due to the fact we have a manic schedule with Gavin and summers are the "busy season" for pop's business. So we end up doing little mini vacations here and there and hope in the end the kids will squash the memories together and they will be as fond as if we did one typical long vacation. Like a typical family. But we are not a typical family.  And our vacations are not.

  The inspiration behind my great idea this year came from what happens every year. (Every year of the 2 and half C and I been married) This is what happens. I see a really cool commercial on TV that looks warm and amazing when it's cold and boring outside and I decide- Wa-loo! That's it! We're going to the Bahamas! Fun, Warm, Complimentary breakfasts. Nice.  So last year around this time we started making serious plans for Hawaii. SOOO laughable now. Hawaii. What a joke. So last year.

  For one- How lofty were we to think we would be able coordinate such a long break between Christian's and Gavin's schedules?  What can I say. We are always optimistic. And-

  For two- Who did we think we were? Certainly not the perma-pregnant couple with more household projects than we would like to admit with a few too many kids, horses and cars, living through an economic dump wash. Kidding about the kids. All that and include a college tuition that has to be paid for from a rapidly dwindling bank account and we soon realized- Oh yes, we are that couple. We were just in denial. Oh- you didn't know we are paying a college tuition? Yep. It's our lawyers son. That's right, STILL on the payroll. Smart kid. We're very proud.  I better get a graduation invite. GO Irish!

Kidding! Kidding "N".  Really I'm kidding. I don't know what college he attends.

  

So the Hawaii idea was squashed. Like a bug. But do we give up the dream? Never! Look at us now already dreaming of Disney Cruises for next year because there was this really awesome commercial on a few weeks ago...... We are so funny! and stupid. Or not. The rumor is you can just leave your kids at group activities on the boat and parents can take off! Without kids. I can leave my kids? Who thought of that? Brilliant genius. After the little safari we took last week, right now I can't think of a better way to spend quality time as a family. I will pay YOU to have quality time with my kids.  I'll gladly part with the money we don't have for something like that any day. You better believe it. 

  So after the dream became a reality and burst I knew we had to be a little more practical. 

  You remember my creative and ingenious way of saving money (and the housekeeper) by making Sheldon wear Whitley's old clothes? Oh yeah. I got creative and ingenious again and came up with something brilliant. Something fun. Something that I thought we could totally do and something really stupid.  What did we decide? RV CAMPING! 

RV CAMPING/Hawaii.    Hawaii/ RV CAMPING. 

Both equally as fun right? Right?

  Let me explain. Last year we went on a this glorious little camping trip. A first for us and we had a blast. Seriously. Earlier that summer something had got up my butt that "real" families camp, like mine did growing up and if Christian and I  were ever going to do right by our poor "fake" kids we had to start taking them camping. Because that's what families do. They camp right? Right? 

  By the time I was Gavin's age I had hiked all over Yosemite every summer with my brothers and sisters. I'll go there in a minute. So my logic was- because I had done it as a kid I thought I would be a failure as a parent unless I did it with mine. And that's very logical to me. So we went and we invited our cousins to come. 

  We invited our two little Texan angel cousins Tatum and Afton who truly are- "Good as Gold". Thoughtful, happy, pleasant, well behaved little darlings who use the words "Yes", "Please" and "Thank You"  as commonly as my children us the word "Fart". They are so polite! 

And we could not have had a better time. It was, as the girls would say- DREAMY. Dreamy and glorious. We did the tent thing. We hiked, we swam at the lake, we sat around the fire, we laughed and played in the sunshine and I was SO proud of myself. Even my parents were impressed. Dad beamed happily when I told him what we did. I think he felt all the hiking and camping he did with us as children had actually grown on me. Maybe it did. I felt like we officially qualified as real family and the kids weren't fake anymore.

 Strange how something that simple could make me feel like I conquered level two of motherhood but it did. Here is a boring camping history and why that was such a big accomplishment for me. 

  For the last 2 decades of my life I sort of rebelled against/hated camping. In any shape or form. Why? I can't really pinpoint. But I just tell people the reason is because I really hate having dirty feet and putting them in a sleeping bag. I hate not showering and being exposed to so much dust and skeeter eaters to compound my filthiness and I hate just in general not feeling authentically clean for more than 24 hours and having bad meals.  It's the truth. I just don't like that. Sue me. For someone like myself who's OCD get worse and worse every year it just got harder and harder for me to enjoy myself and love nature they way you are supposed to love nature when you have to roll and bath in it. 

  So what did I do about all that last year? Simple. Falling back on all sorts of tricky mind tricks I used to do as a child I sort of mentally checked out and played all my creative mind games that are too confusing to explain but make perfect sense to me and I did just fine. I'm pretty good at that kind of stuff.  

  Later I did get to thinking about the real issue behind my disdain for camping and got all psychological like I do and starting thinking that maybe it had to do with my childhood camping experiences. I'm happy to report that I came to the conclusion that it had absolutely nothing to do with my childhood camping experiences which was a disappointment because I love it when I can blame my neurosis on my childhood and I concluded that I was just being psychological because that's what I do. But I did get to wondering again in a different direction how I could possibly consider what I call "camping" now to what I used to do as a young child. Because to be honest, it's not even comparable. I'm going there now. Feel free to skip the next couple paragraphs. This may be only entertaining to my mom and sisters. And that's a stretch.

  This was how we "camped" as kids. And I have all my bros and hos to back me up on this. Hos being my sisters who are not but I can never pass up a rhyme. Is it hos or hoes? Or ho's? Anyway. We NEVER EVER, EVER NEVER went to camp sites. Ever. Never. If there was a porta potty even remotely close my dad pretty much considered the joint an outdoor Motel Six. Which I will admit, there is a little truth to that. Sorry Motel Six. And what would be the point of doing that?  Might as well just sleep in the hotel room and use the bed and shower and sleep amongst the bed bugs. Sorry Motel Six.  Dad's logic was- sleeping at a campsite is pretty much like sleeping and cooking in your front yard and letting your neighbors watch you. If you like that fine, camp at a camp site. If you like privacy and "true" nature hike fifteen miles away from where you parked. 

  So we hiked. I guess after years and years of being a scout and scout leader he figured if 18 year old boys could do this kind of stuff so could 8 year old girls. We hiked and hiked and hiked and then we camped at some distant remote lake. Our final destination. Always a  lake. Where the sight of another family or person would be scarce and a clean water stream would be near by. I can proudly claim, even now, if I was lost in the woods I could find clean water and avoid diarrhea. Without a water purifier or tablets. Although I probably couldn't find my way back. I  might die of starvation, but not of thirst or the runs. Thank you Dad. 

  We all had our own hiking backpacks. The real deal ones, not a Jansport and come to think of it we were the only family I can think of now that had about 8 hiking packs ranging in all sizes. Dad didn't do all the work. True, he did most of it but if we went and wanted to sleep in a sleeping bag and tent we had to carry it. We were all responsible for carrying our fair share of "weight." Weight is food and gear. I would also like to include that we were very skinny and scrawny little children. These packs were probably about half our weight and height. If I had been about 60 pounds my backpack was probably 30 or 40 pounds. Like little ants. The night before we set out we all would do a stand up test with our packs after they had been weighed on a scale to ensure that as much stuff was loaded on it as we could possibly handle. Then we took a test to make sure we could stand up with it on. Dad would make sure the pack wasn't so heavy we would fall over backwards. I think he gave us a little shove. Teetering backward was considered safe because dad figured by the first night we would have eaten off some of the weight and really after a day of healthy/strenuous exercise it would almost be too easy. So teetering was just fine. Then we would drive up to Yosemite or where ever and start our 3-7 seven mile hike to some lake. I was 8? Erin was 6? My dad never even considered that this was unreasonable for young children. And neither did we. My stand on this is that is is not. But I am also nothing like my dad and I really can't see me doing this with my kids. Could you?

  I thought all families did this. But looking back I can recall the shocked look on other hikers faces when they saw my dad rounding the bend with 3 or 4 emaciated little children following him like little ducklings all in a row.  I don't think I ever noticed that no other adults had skinny little children following behind them. But I was also hunched forward face to the ground focused on not falling over backward so I may have not noticed. But I'm not complaining. We loved it. I'm glad we did this. I'm very proud of my dad for taking out small kids and managing all of us and encouraging/forcing us to do stuff like this. My children would literally think I went mad and was sending them on a death march if I tried something like this with them. In fact the only reason this would happen in our family is if we were literally on a death march and IF we were doing it for leisure it would be a death march for me. 

  When we made our way up to the  lake dad always scouted out any signs of human remains (poo) lingering around the area we planned on camping at. He is a very private person and I think the possibility of anyone even being near an area where he may have to use the restroom out in the "open" is not an option. The risk was too great. So if he saw anything that may have even looked like someone had possibly pooped there even recently, upward and onward we would continue to the next lake. He would say to us- Well this is "Jackass Lake" but "Lake Heavenly Heather Merri Meadows Serendipity Lake" is up just ahead. Doesn't that sound beautiful????? 

  I, personally was always in favor of Jackass Lake but I was 8 and no one listened to me. Really how different could they be and 2 more miles today meant that much more hiking tomorrow. But I understand now. It's tough to bolster the spirits of 3 tired little girls to hike another 2 or 3 miles to make sure no one will catch you pooing. He had to get creative. And it usually worked. Depending on who's name the next lake happen to incorporate in it's title. And this for the next decade of my life is how I thought families camped. I didn't even know what a campsite was. When my friends spoke of family reunion camping trips I marveled at how they got all 50 people up to the lake and how they managed to find so many private bathroom areas. Then I started going to Girls Camp. AAAAAAhhhh. Suddenly I see. A portable toilet. Interesting. But unfortunately around that time I started having a very difficult time eating with dirty fingernails and the family hiking trips started be more of a punishment as I would have much rather stuck around town to be on the look out for my current crush. And so it ended. I started putting my foot down. And probably around this time dad didn't mind as I was not the most pleasant adolescent to want to be hiking with. He still had David, Daniel and Erin. Who all genuinely enjoyed it. Dad never pushed. Those were fond memories. It makes me feel like we were raised with real sustenance by a crazy dad.

  So last year when I turned 29 or 30 and realized I hadn't set foot in a National Park in ages said- Let's do it! Let's take the kids camping! Christian thought I had lost my mind but happily agreed. He loves to camp. He was jut waiting for the green light. Well, not waiting because he never thought he was going to do it with me in tow but was pleased with whatever had crawled up my rear and didn't question it. We loaded up our big Norconian Ford F-250 and headed off to the nearest campsite. No, not like Dad would have done I was doing baby steps. Literally. Shelly was just a baby. We had a most glorious time. Why hadn't we done this before? The kids loved it. I loved it. It was great. Including Bathing Suit day. 

Susie- What's Bathing Suit day?

 

  Bathing Suit day was this. At Arrowhead there is this fabulous little lake with water slides, to really enhance the natural and majestic beauty of the lake and a roped off section for swimming. Funnsies. Before we headed back home it was hot and we decided to have lunch there and go for a swim to get some of the dirt off before we got back in the car for the drive home. My idea. About the dirt. We just had one little problem. We didn't bring swimming suits. 

  Now for those of you who know me well I have never worried much about children and bathing suits. If you are uncomfortable with nudity don't come 'round my yard in the summer and don't send your kids a swimmin' with us because my standards are "suits are optional". At least if you are under 10. And that excludes me. So my thought was to let the kids swim in their clothes and undies but what I didn't know was that this lake is a real public attraction and Christian and Angela, the girls mother, are much more modest and respectable than I am and Christian didn't want them going home and telling tales of swimming in their underpants at a public lake. Fair enough.

  Fortunately for Angela and Christian there was a little gift shop at the lake that sold some bathing suits. I think from 1978. Like really, truly the same suits that had been on sale there since 1978. Which is cool. 1978 was a good year. But these were homemade and poorly homemade 1978 bathing suits. And may I just say that for me to make that judgment means they were most awful  because I can't make crap. So I rarely pass judgment. But I honestly think I could have done a better job myself if I had tried.  And that's saying a lot. 

  The little girls swim suits literally looked like someone took some fabric and cut out a shape- free hand-  of what the front of a little girls swimming suit might look like, then cut the other half and sewed them together at the crotch, sides and shoulders. The finished result looked like a cross between a swim suit and a little boys athletic wrestling suit. The bum was not cut any wider than the front pretty much making it totally possible to wear the suit frontwards or backwards, which maybe the designer thought would be easier for children who are learning to dress themselves.  So the backs of the suits went right up their cheekies and it wasn't like you could pull it out like you do a melvin. There was no material. It was like a thong. It's gross and wrong but that's the only way to accurately describe it.

  The top of the suit was much like the bottom.  Because it was pretty much cut exactly the same way as well. Basically the entire suit was Either/Or.  The top of the bathing suit is what I would compare to the top of a boys athletic wrestling suit.   You know how they dip very low and narrow in the front so you can see all the boys change. Pretty much like that. SO unflattering by the way which is one reason why I will never let my boys wrestle. It's like adults playing a cruel joke on young boys by making them wear really ugly old fashion 1920's bathing suits and making them pose in a really humiliating lame pose for a picture, hunched over with their hands stretched out in front of them like they are going to catch a bear or something in that insulting get-up and I think it's just wrong. The whole concept is ridiculous to me anyway. Not just the horrible uniform. Sorry if your kids wrestle. It's me. Not you. Tangent. Anyway. 

  Our color choices were pink or yellow with a small busy floral print. Probably so you could tell it was a girls bathing suit and not a boys athletic wrestling suit. And you your choice of two sizes.  12m-3T and 3T to 8. Yeah. I will be generous and say that it made trying on suits for 3 little girls relatively easy since they all easily fell into one or the other size category.  Not surprisingly my choices were just as bleak. Let me just say the cut of the "adult women's" suits were similar to that of the girls and what I ended up with was a bathing suit that I could have confidently worn if I lived in Germany in 1981. It was that ugly. And it was the LEAST ugly. If I could describe the fabric blend, my guess would be a rayon/polyester/burlap blend. I still have it and if you don't have suit and you are at my house and need to borrow one, just to give myself the opportunity to laugh at you that's the one I will probably offer up. Yeah sorry. 

  Gavin also had a very limited choice of hideous swim shorts cut very high mid thigh in either PokeMon or Yo Gi Oh?  Or maybe it was Scooby Doo and Yo Gi Oh. Anyway, he chose Japanimation. Shelly wore his diaper. 

  So 5 bathing suits, 8 butt cheeks, 6 or 7 nickels (that's what we call little baby ni***les) and $90 bucks later, like 6 little ducks in row we waddled out of the shop shaking our tail feathers! Literally.  I headed up the parade with a naked baby in my arms. And what a sight we caused. There was more skin showing than a Carnival parade.  Because of the most unflattering cut and quality of the suits all of us ladies had our hinies and nickles poking out to the right and left for all the lake to see. I think we may have been more suited for the French Riviera than Lake Arrowhead. Whitley's top was so big it pretty much just completely fell off and lucky for her she has quite an ample bum that kept it on and kept her from being totally nude. Although I had more of an authentic bathing suit, but not cut any better than the girls, for an adult woman with a rather full chest (if you remember Davids picture of me) I  was able to keep my "nickels" somewhat tucked down in my suit down near my waist. So they remained hidden. As for my ample bum, wish I could say the same. In our defense. We had NO options. It was the ugly suits or underwear and truthfully I think underwear and t-shirts would have been more modest. But there were no refunds. What a surprise.

  No exaggeration for the fun of the story when I tell you that jaws dropped. I was worried someone would have us arrested for public indecency. To be honest I was more worried about being arrested than being indecent. I lost all sense of decency or modesty years ago and I don't even know if I was born with it. Just ask my mom. But I could just imagine the gloating from a certain someone if we all had been arrested. To be courteous to the other patrons at the lake and keep Christian's pride intact I tried not to frolick around too much and stayed in my chair covered up with a towel. Despite the scene that we caused and the angry stares of other mothers we had fun and the only thing we would do different next time is bring our own bathing suits. Or would we???????

  So that our first go at a family camping trip. And it was great. Topped off with a classic Susie moment. The Bathing Suit day. I have always said my life is made up of moments like these. The lake was the icing on the cake. 

Okay, so I'm at the point. Fiiinally. 

This year we felt confident and excited to do it again. So we got everything ready and took along cousin Austin. 

  Liz, I'm sorry to only have the nerve to tell you this via blog but that just might be the last time Austin ever wants to go camping again. I'm sorry and I think we might have spoiled any future RV or camping expeditions for your family. Sorry.

  When Austin decides he hates something, it's pretty much for life and I'm not going to jump the gun or anything but I'm thinking this may have been a little much for him.  I'm just throwing that out there.

  Okay. Couple problems. First, in my mind this was going to be as marvelous as last year AND to kick it up a notch I thought that if we went in a RV it would be like camping Nirvana. I felt a little sheepish about the RV so I told my Dad an RV would be easier for me being pregnant and all and with Sheldon in diapers and Whit's unpredictable bathroom habits we were just going to "take it easy this year". But the real truth is I still don't like sleeping in tents and I have unpredictable bathroom habits.  I wanted to camp without having to "camp". That's the truth. Plus I'm too worn out for my mind games these days. It takes a lot out of me. I do so many with the kids anyway.

  So- Down fall number one. Foolishly thinking that this year would be like last year. NO, sorry thinking this year was going exceed beyond my wildest expectations from last year. I set the standard way too high. Murphy's Law. Plummet. Plop.

  Down fall number two. We camped in the desert. In an RV.

Why is that a down fall? 

  I will tell you.  In a forest you have the trees to give you some small sense of privacy and it's easier to pretend you don't notice your neighbors that are 20 feet away. 

But in the desert- There are no trees. So you can't pretend nothing'. 

"Howdy Neighbors! I see inside your tent there you got the same sleeping bags as us. Cool."

  FYI- these camp sites at Joshua Tree- there is no 20 feet anywhere. Popular spot? Yeah. Let's just say the reviews on-line were  "slightly" deceiving. Who ever configured the campground layout though out that communal camping area must have really thought that "communal camping" is the way to do it. Maybe in In 1967. 

 FYI- It's worse if you are in an RV. Maybe because they figure you have shades on our windows? I don't know. RVers get PARKING STALLS. That's right. We camped in a parking stall. With another RV pulled in right next to us. Call me naive but I didn't know that's how it works. Don't ask me what I was expecting because I couldn't tell you. I just wasn't expecting that. It's like all the RV's you see parked at Wal-Mart. In fact Christian mentioned we might as well have camped at Wal-Mart because at least if we needed something we could have just walked over and got it.  I totally understood his logic and agreed but I had to remind him of my boycott of Wal-Mart 8 years ago. Now if you were allowed to camp at Target I would be all over that.

  At one of the 6 designated camp sites designed to hold about 1000 campers we found a stall. That task itself took about 2 hours and made the kids pretty cranky. It looked like a tent city. It seemed to me there was a real risk of walking into someone else's tent on accident if you weren't paying attention. Especially if they had the same sleeping bags as you. Whatever, we were committed at that point. 

 

  Down fall number three. Camping food. It's the truth when I say my kids generally don't eat and when they do I try to keep it semi healthy. Erin is laughing right now, I can hear her. And Elizabeth is a much bigger stickler of healthy food than I am and all that canned pre-packaged sweet camping food plus the five gallon jug of Kool Aid I made may have had something to do with our early departure. Delicate tummies combined heavy salty sweet food and drink, and children with very sensitive gastric floura, will make for some really bad problems later on. So I learned. 

  

  We figured out shortly that most of our fellow campmates, soon to feel like family members, were mostly serious rock climbers who just needed a place to park it for the night between dayS of serious rock climbing. And it was spring break, so tent city made a little more sense to us.

  Our sister wives and husbands that weekend turned out to be those wonderful friendly mellow Northern Californian Kashi eaters type folks who I think happen to enjoy a  daily dose or six, of pot. And strangely wine enthusiasts as well. Sofisticated, rock climbing, Kashi eating, stoned, wine snobs. It was all very new to me. A interesting hybrid of people I have never encountered before. Which is cool. I have a real affinity towards these folks now. They are very nice. LOve yOur MOther people! And German tourists. We were lucky to be squashed right between the two. Pretty fun stuff going on. But we are friendly ourselves and we LOve Our mOther so we were fine with it and felt comfortable in our surroundings. Which was a good thing because we were totally surrounded. There were also lots and lots of kids and families so it was very fun for the kids and I think they thought we just took them to one big outdoor party. If you lived in a really cool neighborhood with lots of kids, it's true. Like dad's theory it was like sleeping in your front yard. 

  Anyway, we had a beautiful day hiking and were pleased to be able to leave the campground for awhile and see some really  beautiful sights. I will put on the record that Joshua Tree is amazing. The rock formations and hiking trails are fantastic for families. We saw some really cool stuff. Including a rattle snake. ME, I saw it! I almost stepped on it. AND being the avid reader I am, I knew exactly what to do. I also know what to do if I encounter a bear,  get stuck in quicksand, get lost in a rainforrest, how not to get trampled if I fall down in the middle of a mad mob and how to kill a man 150 pounds heavier than me 12 different ways and many other survival tricks I learned in a book about how to survive anything. I was impressed with how clear my mind was and how quickly it all came back me. Books like that ARE worth reading and now I know it really could happen to me. Luckily Christiandad and kids weren't on the trail because this bugger was spread right across it. So. First-I froze. Then I took lots of photos and THEN slowly backed away and around the snake. In the book it doesn't tell you to take photos but no one would believe me otherwise so I took the risk. 

 It was a fun day if you don't mind continuous and constant crying and whining and screaming and complaining. All of which Christian and I have grown to numb to. That's also a survival skill worth knowing but I learned it own my own and not out of a book. To us vacations are just chaos in a new and exciting location and hey! that's always more fun than chaos in the same old boring  location like your house. Booooring. We hiked and played and drank too much Kool Aid. Same chaos, different location.

  

  And that was our one official day of vacation and then we had the night that pretty much shut the rest of the trip down. And I'm not complaining. The highlight and most exciting part of our trip and really the only thing worth blogging about happened later that night. Revenge of the Kool Aid. I should have known it would happen because I always have known that Kool Aid is toxic but I didn't listen to my gut and ignored guts revolt. Always listen to your gut. It will get the last word. I will tell you why.

 The pinnacle the whole trip and what made the whole experience an official "Demke Family Vacation" because it's not official until something like this happens was the Night of a Thousand Barfs. And that's the note we always end on. Always. It always ends with throw-up. If we haven't thrown-up yet we just keep on partying until someone does. But more often than not it happens fairly quickly, often even before we were planning on leaving the party. So we actually never really get to party too hard or too long. Just as well. We like to go out with a bang. Or a barf. A barfy bang. 

After a day of hiking and lifiting babie(s) my sciatic nerve was flaming up  and raging painful. I was out. Down.  Done. Officialy cippled for the evening.  First time dealing with sciatic nerve issues. Sorry if I ever blew it off to any of my pregnant friends or sisters. I believe you now. Pretty much from my knee to shoulder to my calves I went lame. 

  If you have ever slept in an RV you know the little beds are smushed into random and tight little pockets of any extra space. I shouldn't use the term extra space because there is no extra space so basically just a pocket with some kind of air hole.  You have to be skinny and agile to get in and out of one of the 3 beds crammed into the RV and coincidentaly I am not either one of those two things right now. Perhaps there is more room in a Motorhome and IF we ever do this again we are totally upgrading.  Getting into that little bed was a chore and when Christian finally shoved the last of my butt into bed I was in and couldn't get out.  I had been very careful about my water intake the hour before I went to bed.

  My "bed" was directly behind the kitchen sink. Like so directly that if I felt like it I could have stretched my legs out and stuck my feet in sink and had Christian wash them for me. While laying in bed. But I didn't because, One- Christian would have said NO and Two-we had a very limited supply of water. But Shelly Belly found out that if you turned the faucet all the way around you could soak my feet and the bed which he thought was pretty cool and since he quickly realized that I was wedged in and immobile he  kept doing it. Hilarious. That along with a million other random little abuses he had a lot of fun dumping on me and I blame him for running out of water so quick.  

 After a full hour of getting everyone situated in our little bunks and table turned bed and lots of fart jokes, fart noises and actaul farts later we finally settled in. Christian opted for the tent with Sheldon because he was little burnt out on all the fart business. His sense of humor is way more sophisticated than ours. We thought he was being snobby. 

 Finally some silence. Then (naturally) I hear Austin say the dreaded words every parent hates to hear while on vacation. "I don't feel so good." 

Crap! Because if I know Austin like I know Austin when he says he "doesn't feel so good" it means for 100% sure he going to throw-up. And probably very soon. Which I will be fair and say I totally understand.

  Austin and I and a few other token members of this fam are "barfers".  Here is life lesson I have learned. Some people can and do throw up and some people don't and won't. Like Peep lovers and Peep haters. You like them or you don't. I throw up. Christian does not. He could count on one hand time how many times he has thrown up since the age of nine. I could probably count on one hand how many times I have thrown up this week. 

   If Austin could verbalize this and I bet he could, our question and motive behind free-barfing would be this. Why bother with keeping it in? Why sit there feeling immobile and rotten, wondering if you are or aren't going to do it? Might as well just scracth the itch and get it over with. Who likes having that crummy hot sick feeling brewing in their gut all day? But the big difference between Austin and myself is Austin is nine and lacks the stomach mastery skills to hold it in until he can find a designated and proper receptacle for unloading his stomach. Which is why I panicked. 

  I was thinking and hoping that maybe if he just got himself out of that little fart pocket of air he and Gavin created his stomach might settle a bit. They had the bed above the driver and passenger seat. You couldn't even lift your arms completely up. A very small pocket bed. It was narrow and tight with very little air circulation. Between their breath and farts I would have thrown up too. I pretty much stayed at the other end of the RV and never went past the "kitchen" table that ventured into their smelly sleeping area. 

So I asked. 

Austin- Are you going to throw up? 

Silence- 

Uhm yes, but I think I can just get to the bathroom when I need to do it.

Yeah right! 

Okay. One- No he can't and Two- 

Now, I hate to admit this. This was proabably one of my most unmaternal moments as a mother and Elizabeth I'm sorry it was Austin at the recieveing end of the moment. But you have to understand that I was virtually stuck in a corner and half my body was numb and wet. I wasn't just being a jerk. Okay, I know I am jerk but generally I do try and curb it around kids. Especially kids I am related too that can talk and tell on me. So instead of getting up and walking outside with him like a good Auntie would, holding his hair tufts and rubbing his back. I screamed at him- 

NO! WE DON'T HAVE ANY WATER LEFT!!!

 Sheldon had officially emptied our tanks with all his mommy pranks. Clear, gray, and black water. All gone. I don't know why you have clear, gray and black water and I never asked. 

I was closest to the toliet and knew that I would be the one sniffing his vomit for the rest of the night if he threw up in there. And the rule was their bad smells had to stay on their side of the RV. Not mine. So unfortunatly throwing up in the toilet like we are usually always supposed to do was not an option. Sorry for any confusion later on Liz.

A really long minute passed. 

Austin............. 

Yes? 

Are you still going to throw up?

I think so. Perhaps. 

Becoming more unmaternal and more true to the Susie I was pre kids. 

THEN GET OUT OF HERE! GET! RUN! NOW!! 

I knew I had a very limited amount of time or else we would have barf all over the RV and I knew Christian wouldn't be in the mood to clean it up. So out the door he went. Good boy. Very good boy. I'm sorry I yelled so loud. I'm sorry the neighbors heard all that and I can hear you barfing. Sorry I can hear you barfing and can't help. So close. Like right outside the... 

Austin! Please don't tell me you just threw up right outside our door!

Well...... no, I sort of did it closer up front.

Where! 

More by the front of the RV. By a wheel.

Like by the passanger side door?

Maybe..... 

 Great. That's gonna be awkward with our new German friends. Right outside our passenger side door means right outside their driver side door. That's going to be hard to try and ignore in the morning. Barf? What barf? 

  By this time I hear very loud screaming and wailing coming from the tent and it's Sheldon and it's loud and I'm sure the Kashi eaters next to them could hear it just as well as I could. Of course they could because Christian had heard one of the Germans burp and the tents were closer than the RV's. 

 Truthfully, I kind of hoped the Kashi eaters were comfortably stoned (if they were doing that) by that time so maybe, just maybe they might find the shrieking funny instead of totally annoying.

  So once again, being the considerate and caring mother I am, I woke up Gavin who woke up Whitely who had both moved in bed with me while Austin was throwing up and told him to grab his and Whits sleeping bags, leave the RV, walk outside to the tent, sleep out there and tell Daddy to send in the baby to sleep with me. Out they go. I hope they find the right tent. If they don't I hope the Kashi eaters will think that's even funnier.

BUT GO AROUND THE BACK OF THE RV!!!!!!!!!!

30 seconds later, Christian comes barreling into the RV with no shirt on which I thought was odd considering it was freezing outside and he literally tosses Sheldon who's in his diaper to me and says- 

Why are the kids wandering around outside with their sleeping bags! 

I wasn't expecting Sheldon to be thrown at me and I missed him.

  Apparently Sheldon had thrown up everywhere, on everything, including the walls and ceiling of the tent and Christian was kind of freaking out. 

  

  Now I don't know if it was because he was topless or because I asked him how barf could get on the ceiling of a tent the logistics of that were confusing to me or maybe because it was mentioned he looked like Beaker (from the Muppets) without his glasses on, but he had it and yelled that he didn't give a Crap!- That everything was covered in throw up!- He had no clean clothes or a clean sleeping bag anymore!- It was cold outside and it stinks like farts in here and we were packing up and going home! RIGHT NOW! 

My pleasure. 

Told you we like to go out with a bang.

So that's what we did. He litereally just threw everything inside, including Whitley and Gavin and we sped off into the night and I was mighty glad I wasn't going to have to pretend there wasn't any barf between the RV's to the Germans the next moring. Because it sounded like there was tons. 

Barf? What barf? Sorry my German's bad. No comprende.

  But because it would have been too simple if we had left it like that, on our way home we had to stop for gas and again I hear more loud close barfy splashy noises coming from inside the RV which means it's hitting linoluem.  I've thrown up on linoleum before. My thought was that it was Whitley because she seemed like the most likley person to do it next. The ONLY reason I was able to sit up in bed and pull back my curtain that seperated my feet from the sink was to find out who was doing it. I couldn't holler out because Sheldon and Gavin were asleep next to me. Plus I had to asses the damage and see how bad of mess Christian was going to have to clean up.

  When I pulled back the curtain, looking me right in the eye, nose to nose and practically mouth to mouth was Austin throwing up in the sink! That had no water anymore! Throwing up while he looked guiltily into my eyes. Some of it splashed on my face.

  Knowing I was walking a thin line and knowing the sink could only hold so much, if I continued that stare down for a moment more it would be both of us fighting for sink space. I did the only thing I could think of. 

Austin, Elizabeth. My apologies. Erin or Heather would have been much  nicer. 

I pulled back the curtain and stuck my head under the covers held my nose and tried to go to sleep and breath through my mouth until we got home. 

Home Sweet Home.

Did I mention we were out of water in our tanks?

RV rental- $400 dollars 

Kool Aid- $2.79

Crowded Camping RV stall rental- $12.00

Being able to take off in the middle of the night leaving one stray chair and some throw up piles- Priceless.