Road Tripocalypse 2012: my end is neigh. Live blogging the madness.

Alarm set for 3 am. Husband insisted. I lobbied for 2:30. "Rachael, that's not safe." YOU'RE not safe, I imagine retorting. But, maybe he's right. OH WAIT. It's 2:40 and like some cruel and twisted alarm clock, Eli is awake. And just for good measure, he was up at 11 pm too. Nothing about my life is safe right now. The baby is already playing dirty. All bets are off.

3:50. Late start. This is, however, happening: we are in the car. My husband just offered me a "go team" fist bump. Edie wailed "why are you taking me out of my bed." This blog will hopefully serve as evidence of her non-kidnapping should she decide to continue wailing this at a patrolled rest stop.

45 min in. Edie is still awake. Not shocking. Eli finally passed back out. Some thoughts: are the waffles at Waffle House really awesome? Like all thick and fluffy? Why do I have a song from Dinosaur Train in my head? And not even the theme song. No, the B-side tune "Troodon Night Train." I want it out. Slightly better than when I got The Thong Song in my head during a 10 day silent meditation retreat, though. National corvette museum in 15 miles. That is a specific museum. I don't want to go to it. I DO want to go to the medical oddities museum. In Pittsburgh, is it? I don't know. But it looks crazy cool.

5:33. The screaming begins. Eli. Edie is awake. Super.

5:45. Screaming stops after crawling back to Eli and singing Hush Little Baby 9 times. Now he is chattering to his Sleep Giraffe. Cute, but, for real, go back to sleep. Edie lost baby Calin. But we found her after only one tear. Victory. Now SLEEP, creatures! The sun is way not up yet.

6:05. Eli "waaaah!" Edie: "my tummy hurts." Mom "it is not today, yet. Shhhhhhhh."

"If you lived here, you'd be home right now." is a really popular slogan for apartment complexes.

Passing through Louisville. Which is way hard to say properly. If you think it's "loo-ee-ville," think again!! It's some inexplicable back of the throat pronunciation. I practice when I'm alone sometimes.

Asked will if he thought Waffle House would be awesome. He said maybe. Do I want to try it? I said maybe. But he knows I do. Then he asks if I heard what their CEO did. Sigh. No, but I am guessing it will cause me not to eat at Waffle House. Yep. I was right.

9:03. But I think that accounts for a time zone change. Who knows. Anyways. Half way there. It's going ... mediocre with a dash of bad. Eli is massively unhappy. I nursed him when we stopped and he fell dead asleep. But him in his car seat, he immediately woke up and had been yelling at me ever since. Will broke the car outlet by trying to "fix" the mp3 radio device by jamming it in with all his might. He's pretty adamant that the issue is a shoddy outlet. I think that, by design, these outlets aren't meant to withstand full blown rage. Oh!! Oh!! Eli closed his eyes! Maybe? A nap?!?

10:40. The nap was 10 min long. He woke up mad. We had to pull over after awhile. Starbucks!! Small miracles. We get out, use a moderately clean restroom, order chai and whatnot. Wish we had eaten breakfast here, because, lets face it, we are inexcusably and irredeemably prissy and the Waffle House (yeah. we ended up at one. The screams, people!) made us feel lousy. City slickers (*knocks heel of boot against a rock and spits in dirt*).

Ok! Almost there! *ish*. 30 miles to go. Eli's voice is raspy with exhaustion and anger. But he perseveres, lest we forget that he never signed on to this. He has taken two 15 min naps. Yet I specifically ordered a baby who was not capable of substituting sleep for shrieking!! Customer service, these days. Dreadful. Edie is mostly delightful. The back seat is decorated on polka dot stickers. My toe is bleeding. Something under the dash cut me. I think a little blood is appropriate.

Current theme song: "We Gotta Get Out of This Place." by the Animals.