Natural Selection

*This entry is dedicated to a friend whose name I can't share because I don't want her to get in trouble with her family :)*

Pink, red and white is everywhere right now.  Much like half eaten candy canes that I am finding around the house (I'm looking at you, S) Valentine's decorations are the sorry, slightly furry leftovers of Christmas.  Valentine's stuff is all over.  Except for a few locally owned chains that are pushing Mardi Gras, Valentine's Day is the next retail holiday push.  Store away your Christmas stuff in our red and green totes, and buy these pink and white Valentine's Day Totes to store this Valentine crap we're selling!  Ugh.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about Valentine's Day:  St. Valentine's Day is a liturgical holiday for Valintinus who was performing prohibited marriages, ministering to the persecuted Christians, and doing other stuff generally uncool with the Romans.  He supposedly healed his imprisoner's daughter, and left her a note before being executed signed "From your Valentine."  This sounds a little pat to me, but I'm no expert.  A timeline, if you will:

• The age of chivalry heightened this into an idealized romantic love.  Amorous courters would offer flowers, gifts, confections to their lovers in knights and maidens tymes.
• In the 1800s, books were published as guides for young men to write verse for their lasses.  Emo was born.
• In the 1800s, Brits got the postal system going which meant that valentines could be sent anonymously.  Hence, things got really saucy.  This was the first drunk emailing.
• Loving all this unsolicited, free word-porn, the popularity of valentines, and thus, the holiday itself surged in the mid 1800s.  *See entry on  Fifty Shades of Gray.
• Although the Brits had been sending valentines for a while, the first US mass-produced paper lace cards were made by one Esther Howland.  Since 2001, the US Greeting Card Assn (could there be such a thing?) has been giving out the annual Esther Howland Award for greeting card visionary.  Or, as the trophy's known:  Thanks for paying our bills, Ms. Esther.

Eventually fabric and lace yielded to paper, glitter, vellum, and soft-focus roses for men to by for women and snarky cards about horny husbands for women to buy for their men.Currently, we are in a consumer paradise of pink and white (rather than yellow and pink for Easter) Peeps, pink and white M&Ms, pink and white Kisses, pink and white roses that cost a ridiculous amount.  Pink and white decor, theme clothing, candy, and home furnishings explode around us.
Superstores dedicate aisles to it.  Pier 1 sells artsy pink and white.  Target's got your chic pink and white.  WalMart has your budget pink and white.  Dollar Tree has last year's pink and white.  Dirt Cheap has the pink and white that nobody else wanted.

While the historical significance of the holiday may be a blend of martyology and lore, the celebration has distilled into something more palatable to the average American:  consumerism.
But I feel that both the snowballed legend and the current conspicuous celebration are overlooking a crucial element of the holiday's evolution:  its proximity to Christmas.

St. Valentine's Day occurs exactly 51 days after Christmas.  Coincidentally, and there are no actual studies to corroborate this, it takes 51 days for the human  body to completely eradicate residual familial/in-law induced toxicity.  That includes internal toxicity and any external crazy absorbed through environmental sources.
It takes 51 days for you not to wake up with that horrible dream where you're living at home again after a series of massive life failures.
51 days days to stop thinking of yourself as a treed cat.
51 days to stop the Pavlovian desire for vodka when you hear the word houseguest.
51 days to stop your left eyelid from twitching when you hear a child whining.
51 days to rid the godawful stench of artificial cinnamon/evergreen from your nose.
51 days for you to eliminate the PTSD when you see red and green in the discount bin.
51 days for you to not to gag when you smell turkey and/or ham.
51 days for you and your husband to start speaking to each other after that big fight over where Aunt Betty was going to sleep.
51 days for you to start speaking to your kids who fought nonstop with their cousins for 2 whole weeks.
51 days for you to start speaking to Uncle Al who not so subtly suggested you get your son "tested."

In short, it takes from Christmas Day to Valentine's Day to remember how and whom to love again.  Valentine's Day represents a way in which the Darwinian impulse to survive seeped into civilization.  We need a day to remind us to love those people around us.  We need to be reminded that without our parents who made us crazy, we would be left unprotected and die.  We need pink and white to remind us that our husbands weren't being passive aggressive when they "forgot" cranberry sauce at the grocery store 6 times as soon as he heard your mom was on her way.  Without sparkly cards and sappy poetry, we'd never forgive them, have make-up sex and perpetuate the species.  And we would die.  If not for the endearing popsicle stick and paper doily nursery school crafts, we would never want to take care of our ungrateful, ill behaved, 'when are you going back to school, go out and and play in the blizzard' children.  And, we as a species, would die.
Pink and white is a primal code in our brain to repair ourselves from the emotional and physical chaos of Christmas.  It is a holiday that resonates with our collective desire to love, despite the massive family dysfunction we all have.  Pink and white is an emotional band-aid.  A salve for the deep scars, both benign and neurotic that we all bear from spending the first 18 years of our lives with crazy people who we didn't choose as housemates.  Tacky chocolates and pastries are the panacea to our marriages with people we love, we chose and we still choose to love because they were unlike all others.  (Which, in hindsight might have been more of a symptom than an asset.)  Thus, the holiday serves as a sociological excuse to fulfill our genetic impulse to survive, our psychic need for love.

Lowered Expectations

Every time we go out to eat, it seems, we are seated next to people with small children.  Like toddlers to three-year olds.  The dinner companions who still require either a sweeper or loving dog to clean the floor.  The age when the kids themselves seem to be constantly crumbling as half-digested the Goldfish/Cheerio/animal crackers they have in their hands ALL THE TIME fall apart.  The dinner companions who still fling food like bonbons in a zoo.  The kind of companions who use high chairs to replace real chairs, who perch on boosters that collect boogers and chicken nuggets at an alarming rate.  These are the kids who I sit next to in restaurants.

Generally, I should empathize with these parents.  I should smile knowingly and assure them that meals will eventually return to relatively clean affairs.  I should console the mother of a wailing toddler and tell her that no no, she shouldn't worry.  The baby's not too loud.  I should be able to say we've all been there.  I should think everyone deserves a meal out and that we all need to get over this Victorian notion that kids should be invisible.  I should think maybe it's just not her day, I am sure she usually doesn't give her 2 year old Mountain Dew, french fries, and an ice cream sundae at EVERY meal.  Maybe she's just trying to get through today, and Mountain Dew chills that kid's shit out.  I should be able to recall the dozens, hundreds of meals I ordered and had to change to "to go" because one of the darlings woke as a troll from a nap.  I should think of all the cold dinners M ate because he held one of the angels while I got to eat first.  I should.

But I never do.  Isn't it awful?  I've come full circle.  Remember before you had kids?  No, I know, that's a ridiculous question.  Your addled,child-having brain can't remember anything beyond 3 minutes ago and the 2 things on your 7-11 grocery list.  Pretend you remember before you had kids, and went to a restaurant and you thought Jesus, that woman needs to control that baby.  It's running amok.  The "its" being the tell-tale sign that you haven't yet found the wonderful, yet excruciating responsibility of being responsible for another human.  Remember when you saw that desperate mom begging her child to eat a preformed mozzarella stick?  Remember you sneered at the woman's conviction that fried cheese was indeed dairy, and, therefore, healthy?  Remember YOU were going to grow organic peas in your hand composted garden and steam them in mineral water and strain, freeze and reheat them without a microwave, because that is a tool of the devil?  Remember when you would swear you'd leave the restaurant if your fictional future-child were to make an above 44 decibel sound?  Remember when you were young and skinny and intolerant and bitchy? 

 I'm back to that woman.  Well, half of her, anyway.  I'm BITCHY about sitting next to kids.  Again.  Can you believe that?  Can you believe I have gone from I can't believe that child isn't drinking organic milk, my future-child will always drink organic milk, even if it costs 3 times the amount of a gallon of gas.  To cramming a sundae down a kid's throat, because hey, a maraschino cherry is a fruit and that's healthy.  Back to holy crap, that kid just puked milk on that table, remind me to bring Lysol with me EVERYWHERE I go.  It's true.  I'm neither young nor skinny, but I am as intolerant and bitchy as ever.  Isn't this awful?

I kind of hate myself for this.  Right?  I do, and I think I should get off my superiority kick and realize that there are people whose kids are in high school and and don't wear sneakers to formal night on a cruise who are thinking that I should just get my shit together right about now.  Because there are those people.  And they are judging me.  Because that's what we, as parents,  have to do.  We have to, at any given time, be able to point to some one else, some other poor schmo who is also just trying to get today without abusing child or killing self and we have to think we are definitely doing better than that poor jerk.  I am doing better than some one else.  Anyone else.  Because we start parenting thinking that we can do it all perfectly, and then we realize that's it.  We gave it our best go, but it was probably crap, and that we've lowered the bar.  Not entirely to the detriment...we gained some freedom not holding ourselves to an impossible standard.  We gained joyful messes and spontaneous laughter because we weren't obsessing about the (possibly alien) life form that has started to grow on your kid's car seat.  We have to find a good place for the bar.  I'm not sure I have.  

But still, damn, can I get seated in the non-breeding section of a restaurant on date night just once in a while?

More lowlights in parenting

Sometimes, as a parent, less is more.  Less explanation, more authority.  Less spoiling, more austerity.  More love, less order.  In theory, anyway.

A few weeks ago, I asked E to help with some chores.  Not big chores, mind you, but household work necessary to keep things running.  Unfortunately, I asked him in the middle of a TV show.  So, what I got was E storming in to the kitchen, ripping at the garbage bag, bitching about taking it out to the can, and telling me that I was the worst mom in the history of the known universe.

He punctuates the argument with, "you're such a whore."

This, naturally, sends me into a huge diatribe:  you can't speak that way to your mother, about women, about prostitutes.  Do you even know what that means?  Why do you think a woman would be compelled to have sex with a stranger for money?  Do you know why that's so offensive?  Do you know what kind of male chauvinism and misogyny is behind that statement?  Do you understand that degrading others does not elevate yourself?  Where did you hear that?  What have you been watching on TV?  Which of your friends said that?  You're never going to be friends with that kid again!  Whore?  Because I asked you to take out the trash?  We are a family, we work together to make things work in this house.  Every one contributes.  It's not my job, just because I stay at home doesn't make me your slave.  We are fortunate that I can even stay home, but that still means you live in the real world.  You think your friends don't have chores?  You think they call their mothers filthy words?  Do you even know the complicated educational, sociological, and economic factors that contribute and perpetuate prostitution?  That it is a symptom of a system that subjugates and demeans women?  That this is the same thinking behind your ill conceived notion that I have to work for you?

I'm yelling now.  I'm throwing words at him that leave him looking stunned, a little dazed.  Perhaps even confused.  I don't care.  I want him to understand that woman hating and name calling will NOT fly in my home.  HE WILL UNDERSTAND, DAMMIT.

Eventually, he takes out the trash. Sullenly, he comes inside and heads to the office to pull down a dictionary.

"H-O-R-R-O-R.  Mom, I don't think that word means what you think it does."

"OH.  Horror.  Yeah.  Well, forget everything I just said."

Excuses, Excuses

I don't like our school district's calendar.  At all.  I don't like that my "small government" state representatives think that regional school districts' calendars should be determined at the state level.  I don't like that those men heard the case between money and education and voted against education, as usual.  I don't like that they didn't announce the change for the 2012 summer until April of 2012, which screwed up the plans of people who actually travel.  I don't like it for a lot of reasons.
I really didn't like that the change meant that the kids (and therefore the teachers and parents) didn't even have 2 business weeks of Christmas Break.  Somehow, we desperately needed an extra week of summer, which studies show is already too long for elementary students to retain their learning, to generate more income from the beach, and fewer days around the most chaotic, most wonderful holiday of the year.  So, I was bummed that the kids weren't going to have Thursday and Firday of last week to chill out.  On the other hand, the barf disease we got kept them home anyway.
That being said, I was definitely ready to see them off Monday morning.  Since recovering from the hideous virus, they have been alternately fighting each other and me.  And I was happy as a clam kissing them good-bye this morning.
E, on the other hand, was not ready to go gently into that small bus, and came in armed with excuses:

E:It's too cold.
Mom:  Wear a sweatshirt.

I feel sick.
Take a Tums.

I feel hot.
Take an Advil.

I feel sleepy.
Have some coffee.

I feel silly.
Prozac's in the cupboard.

We never learn anything on the first day back, anyway.
Today's not everyone's first day back.

Garfield and I think Mondays should be removed from the calendar.
Then you'd be like 1/7th older than you are now.  Go get a job.

I really want to go the library to get those manners books you wanted me to read.
I've done that already.  You said you read them.

There could be a tornado  today.
There could be a tornado here today.  Then wouldn't you feel stupid?

There could be a fire today.
Not if you quit smoking.

There could be a shooting today.
You are safe at school.  I promise you.

I should be homeschooled today.
If you were homeschooled, there'd be a shooting today.

Mental Health Tip #12

Keep two to three neatly stacked piles of clean laundry on a bench or chair in the front hall.
...I find this helps eliminate several pesky situations at the same time.  What a great tip, am I right?  Here's how:  Take one to three shirts of similar size (and color, if you are particular about the color scheme in your front hall)  from any of your husband's or kids' drawers.  If you wish, you may use hand me downs or recently out-grown shirts.  Add one pair of pants or socks a stack.  You want the stacks to appear natural.  Place these stacks on a bench, chair or tabletop.  If you have limited space in your entry hall, a stool with a single, shorter stack of laundry near your front door will do.  Fold into one of the stacks a fresh dryer sheet to lend the aroma of freshly cleaned clothes.  If you are sensitive to smells, feel free to omit this step.  Next, when a friend, neighbor, relative, UPS delivery person, Jehovah's Witness, FedEx, Girl Scout, Boy Scout, USPS guy, random solicitor, serial rapist ring the doorbell, open the door briskly.  If you have clear glass doors as I do, you may want to make an "ah, yes, you" nod to the laundry as you walk by it briskly.  Briskly is the key.  If you slouch or drag by the pile of laundry, this tip won't work.  When you open the door, make sure your acknowledge the piles to your guest/attacker with a nod.  You may wish, depending on situation to even make casual mention of the piles to the guest.  Don't elaborate extensively, the goal here is to ensure the guest/attacker doesn't think the pile is permanent, just an afterthought:  "Oh, hi." Then insert one of these brief phrases.  The phrases are easy to remember and so useful, they're worth the effort.  Here they are:

1.  "...Oh, hi!  I was just loading up the car on my way to Goodwill"
BENEFIT:  You are looking organized, benevolent and kind.  Other people don't judge organized, benevolent people harshly.  People will eventually forget that they've NEVER seen you at Goodwill.  If you're lucky, the guest will feel slightly guilty about his/her lack of recent charity and judge you less harshly.  Nobody wants to admit the charitable woman in the office is the total wack-o.
DOWN SIDE:  Moral self righteousness doesn't work well with Scouts (Boy and Girl) or Jehovah's Witnesses.
WORKS BEST WITH:  Friends, Enemies (whether sworn or she doesn't know it yet), mothers-in-law, mothers, neighbors, anyone who might tend to judge you too harshly  +Bonus Added benefit--you can actually put those clothes in the car and be charitable.

2.  "Oh, hi!  I was just putting away laundry"
BENEFIT:  You are looking busy.  Everyone thinks "C-R-A-Z-Y" when they think of some one lounging around the house in satin daywear, daydrinking a mimosa at 10:30 on a Wednesday.  And if not CRAZY, then at least drunk.  But, satin daywear or otherwise, a mom putting away laundry is doing something.  She's obviously been doing something else, too, because she's just getting to the laundry.  Which you were doing, obviously, you were lounging around the house in satin daywear, drinking a mimosa at 10:30 on a Wednesday.  But brisk walking and a manageable pile of laundry indicate you're on top of it.  Normal people are ON TOP of things.
+BONUS BENEFIT #1:  You have concealed your OCD.  OCD would never leave piles of laundry laying about--especially in the front hall.  OCD never lets her crazy sit out in the front hall!  Now, your neatly arranged stacks are paying double benefits.  You are not crazy in 2 different ways!  Sane all around!
+BONUS BENEFIT #2:  Your social anxiety has an instant exit plan.  Say it's not the UPS man dropping off workout wear from Athleta that will NEVER see the inside of a yoga studio.  Say it's a chatty neighbor, a relative, or some one you really just can't manage to a) sober up for b) overcome your paralyzing fear of c) look at without considering suicide/homicide--then all you need to do is casually reference your stack of laundry and say, "Well, listen.  Great talking to you.  Gotta get back to my laundry."  Voila!  Guest disappears.

You're welcome!  Here's a useful link to get you started:  http://www.flipfold.com/  Be sure to keep reading for more Mental Health Tips!  Shortcuts to looking sane!

Christmas Vacation, or how I lost 3 pounds in 3 days

So, into every life, a little shit must fall.  I get that.  I wish the shit that fell into my life were a little less literal and a little more metaphorical.

A recap of our Christmas Break.

The kids had school up until the Friday before Christmas.  Fortunately, M was done with his semester, because coming up that week, I had three class parties, two houses to clean, and four people to pack for a 7 day vacation.  It was kinda crazy.  I will never been room mom for 2 classes again.
So.  Class parties done.  Check.  Pack.  Check.  Flight to Miami from Pensacola at 6 AM on Saturday.  Miraculously, check.  We arrived in Miami ready to party it up with the elderly and their parents on Holland America's luxurious Eurodam for a week.
Our cruise was overwhelmingly good, but not without glitches.  The weather was fantastic.  Amazing.  Glorious.  Our cabin was great.  After last year's vomit incident, we decided to go with a veranda cabin this year.  We kept the door open and the ship's wake made surf sounds and I could watch the little flying fishies playing in/fleeing from the wake.  First stop was Grand Turk.  Meh.  The weather was fine, the water fine, but we had little time to explore.  I scooped up some sea glass and headed back to the ship for mojitos and sunbathing sans children.
Second stop, San Juan.  It turns out S was too small to go ziplining.  Also, turns out San Juan is cerrado on Christmas Day.  Not complaining.  They still sell Bacardi in bars there, and I helped myself.
Third stop, St. Thomas.  As it turns out, I missed my calling, and when I go to St. Thomas I am reminded of this failure to seize my life's destiny.  I was meant to be an 18 year old stoner girl with a cute tramp stamp and a rockin' body who was "Coast Guard Certified" to sell rum punch to tourists while steering a catamaran to a reef where their white, pasty asses could swim around for a while and look at the wildlife.  M says I lack the qualifications to go back and try to recapture that missed opportunity...also, I think the "reef" where the cat anchors is much like the old submarine ride at Disneyland. When I mentioned this to some of my fellow pasty tourists, one of the men (who must be divorced, widowed by suicide or socially stunted)....(he may have had a brain injury, I hadn't considered brain injury.  I hate to be insensitive.) said that I was dating myself by referencing the submarine ride since that wasn't a ride since like the 80s.  And THEN I said, are you divorced?  Did your wife kill herself?  Are you socially incapacitated?  OOOH.  Wait.  Do you have a brain injury?  I'm sorry about your brain injury.  Quick hint, FYI:  you NEVER tell a woman she's dating herself.  Ever. Please, tell me about the accident that rendered you unable to filter what you are saying to a strange woman.  Also, how the hell do you know what the rides are at Disneyland?  You're a middle aged grownup, you big loser.

Fourth stop, Half Moon Cay.  This is an "island" owned by the cruise  line itself.  The weather was spectacular.  Unfortunately, our snorkel excursion was canceled due to broken boat.  Still.  What a day.
We, flew back from Miami.  I washed a week's worth of laundry and ironing in a few hours, put it all away and packed for a short two-nighter to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl.
The Gator Bowl:  Northwestern University (trying to win its first Bowl since 1948, despite 10 opportunities) versus Mississippi State.
The Gator Bowl is in Jacksonville, Florida.  That's only a 6 1/2 hour drive from here.  But Florida is hellaciously wide as well as long, and it's boring as it is long.  Every three miles is a billboard commanding me to pray or to not abort my children.  Which I hadn't really considered doing 'til I drove through Florida.  But they're in like their 90th trimester, so it'd be pretty hard to find a doctor willing to perform the procedure at this point.  So, we get to Jacksonville.  Insofar as "Jacksonville" can be called "there."  It's not really a city, as it is another crowded place in Florida.  There is only one city in Florida, and it is Miami.  The rest of mainland Florida is a protrusion of land into the Caribbean Sea that God put there to protect the rest of us from hurricanes, flooding, and other natural disasters.
Of course, we couldn't check into our hotel because the Gator Bowl parade was on.  Let me try to describe the Gator Bowl parade.  Imagine the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Now imagine it
sponsored by TJ Maxx.  Like instead of floats and beauty queens, there were fire trucks and Ms. Forestry Jacksonville (I wish I were making up that last one).  Also, if I were a band member, or in the color guard of Mississippi State, I would seriously start a letter writing campaign to change the LEAST FLATTERING UNIFORMS on the planet.  In fact, the color guard of Mississippi State was the only part of the parade that resembled the balloons of the Macy's parade. Mississippi State alums, if you're looking for a meaningful donation, may I suggest facial waxing for the band?
After that 20 minutes 1/4 mile long of pageantry, we checked into our hotel.  It was kinda crazy there.  The hotel was NU's HQ's, so naturally everyone staying there is a 72 year old retired professional who's just a teensy bit unfamiliar with today's head spinning technology of key cards and Internet reservations. I suspect that next door at the Omni, MSU's HQ, things would be younger, hipper, beer-ier, and you know, more fun.  They haven't been waiting more than a half-century for a bowl win.
That night, we took the kids to The Melting Pot for a family-fun New Year's Eve Dinner.  Will you  remind me not to do family fun things for my kids again, ever?  We arrive (a bit harried, after our delayed check-in) in time for our 5:15 reservations.  Yes, you read that correctly.  My social anxiety prohibited me from calling for reservations, so M did it on the 30th and that's all they had so just shut up.
We sit down to discover that on New Year's, The Melting Pot has only a Prix Fixe menu.  For $50 per person.  Let me say that S has never in his life, cumulatively, eaten $50 worth of food.  So, I ask, apologetically, if there were, by chance, a way, that maybe, there could be a kids' menu?  The answer, hooray! is yes, for kids 5 and younger.  "Perfect," says I.  "We have one who squeaks in that category."
Yes.  I lied.  Yes.  S is 7.  But he wouldn't eat anymore than a 5 year old and it was $15 instead of $50 for food that he wasn't going to eat anyway.  I know.  It wasn't the right thing to do.  But, you know what?  I said it.  I put it out there into the universe knowing that I was being dishonest.
And the universe said, "Suck it, bitch."
Well, actually S said, "But I'm SEVEN, I can't eat off the kids' menu."
Now I'm a lying cheapskate to the waiter.  He must have been relieved that 18% tip was built into the prix fixe for the night.  Don't I feel like the asshole.
So, I boiled meat for myself in microscopic little portions for $50 on New Year's Eve while the sun was still out.  Pure magic.
But, NU in another Bowl Game.  A chance for victory!  To get the proverbial monkey off our backs!  Go 'Cats!
We woke up to a New Year!  A beautiful day, full of promise and hope.  Except in Jacksonville.  You could roll a bowling ball through downtown Jacksonville on New Year's Day.  We walked to Jaguar Stadium.  We scored on the 4th play!  Hooray!  We're winning!  We're winning!  WE WON!  History be damned, Pat Fitzgerald has saved the Northwestern Wildcats!  It was thrilling, exciting, and I am glad I could be there.
We made it back to Jacksonville's tourist center, "The Landing."  I hope it's not the lead indicator of Jacksonville's economic health.  The only people there: elated Northwestern fans looking to celebrate with a beer and watch the Rose Bowl on TV, disgruntled State fans looking to douse the loss with a beer and watch the Rose Bowl on TV, homeless people looking for a beer, and cops to separate the beer purchasers from the beer beggars.  The only restaurant open is Hooters.  All the shops and souvenir kiosks and Dippin' Dots stands are shuttered.  In fact they might have only been cardboard facades to make it look like there were shops and kiosks and things to do there.  We ate our Hooters, we watched the first quarter of football, and decided to make our way back to the hotel room with the kids who were bored of football (Shut up. I know.  They're half Canadian, what do you want from me?)
That's when the fun really started.
S went to sleep at about 4:30.  I dozed next to him for a while.  At 6 he woke up, looked confusedly at me with unseeing eyes, and barfed all over the bed.  Hooters sliders.  On the bed.  Liquefied.
You have never seen a white girl move so fast as me leaping off that bed.
M handles vomit in the bathroom, I bundle up the bedding and stick it in the hall.  I'm on the phone to housekeeping.  "We need bedding, towels, the works, STAT."
Meanwhile, vomit is really happening.  E races into the bathroom to vomit (he's a bit faster since the vomit episode on the cruise last year.)  It's REALLY happening.  There's no windows.  I crank up the A/C, in an effort to slow the molecules of stink down so they're not assaulting my nose at the speed of 74 degrees.
More vomiting.  The housekeeper shows up.  She's a delightful Jamaican woman who was the hotel's first soldier in a stunningly good brigade of employees who helped us.  Seriously.  They were awesome, given a really, really bad situation.
The housekeeper makes the bed, leaves a ton of towels, gets us all ship-shape again.  The kids are really suffering.  Now the explosive fluids have moved south, and poor S, in an effort to dutifully vomit into the toilet, simultaneously and inadvertently sharts on the floor.  This room is ready for the Febreeze challenge.
Of course, the hotel room is the size of a postage stamp, so if you want an idea of the freshness level, go into your closet and take a semi-liquid dump on the floor.  I'm struggling not to chain vomit.  There's liquid coming out of 4 of the 8 major orifices in the room.  Amazingly, the awesome housekeeper has sent up ginger ale, 7Up, and soda crackers for the kids.  Which was just unbelievably nice considering that we just absolutely destroyed the olfactory integrity of that room for the next decade.
It's 7 PM, and we're in the midst of a shit storm.  M alternately consoles one at the commode while rinsing off the other child in the tub.  I'm packing.  We will be leaving at first light.  Before there are witnesses.  What's happened in that bathroom is illegal in 7 states and violates the Geneva Convention.
The kids are up and down all night in a grotesque modern dance of writhing and excreting.
I have NEVER wanted to be home more in my life.  EVER.  EVER.
The wake up call the next morning is unnecessary.  We're walking out the door when the phone rings.  After a brief stop at the front desk to praise the awesomeness of the staff, we are in the car, on the road, out of JacksonVILE.
Almost.  We got on the wrong road.  But we fixed it pretty quick.  NOW we're on the road.  Out of JacksonVILE.
About half an hour into the long trip home, my stomach cramps.  And aches.  I turn over the wheel, and spend the next 2 hours moaning in the passenger seat, willing the car to teleport speed.
About 2 hours into the trip, the trip becomes a farce.  I wave my hand urgently, M pulls over.  I vomit.  We continue on.  This goes on for the remaining 4 hours.  Except for a rest stop at the Florabama border.  I'm just saying, if you come to a rest stop at the Florabama border, what I did there has a measurable half life.  You should just drive on past it to the BP station.
How was YOUR Christmas Break?