Exit 216

DO NOT....I repeat...DO NOT EVER take a tiny baby on a 3 1/2 hour car ride by yourself (or even with someone else along for that matter). Big, dumb, huge mistake. Tiny babies need to be held and cuddled by humans, not plastic car seats..as Jonah taught me last week. Here's what happened.

Since I'm on this lovely maternity leave, I decided that it would be real cool to take Jonah to Roseburg to visit my parents. They live about 3 1/2 hours drive from Portland. No problem, I thought. Yeah, I'll certainly have to stop once
each way to feed him, but other than that, he'll be totally content back there. Well..that's pretty much the exact opposite of what happened. We started off at about 5:45 PM. About 40 minutes outside of town Jonah starts mildly fussing..ok, need to pull over..but wait..I realize that I'm definitely not in California anymore, as the off ramps are sometimes miles and miles apart. How I wish for overpopulated, suburbanized California at this point! By the time I do find an off ramp and pull over, the poor kid is screaming like I've never heard him scream before. And when I get him out of his car seat, he is sweating from head to toe from crying so hard. So now he's crying and I'm crying-I should have taken this as an omen of how the next 7 hours of my life would play out-but alas, I am an optimist.

Twenty minutes later I finally get Jonah settled and happy, shove a pacifier in his mouth, and start out again. About 2 miles up the road, the pacifier is out, and Jonah is starting to fuss again. At 10 miles up the road, he is screaming again and I pull over onto a country road and just sit in the back for 20 minutes and hold him. At this point, I call my parents and ask them to meet me in Eugene for emergency back up..Mom can ride drive my car, and Dad will follow. Actually I believe my father suggested this.. and I accepted.

And we start out again. Another 10 miles goes by and again, poor little Jonah starts expressing his unhappiness in no uncertain terms. This time I pull over to the side of the freeway as there is no exit in sight..another 20 minutes in the back seat with the little guy.

A repeat of the last two stops...poor Jonah starts screaming 10 miles down the road. That's it, I can't take this and I can't keep doing this to the poor little guy. So I stop for good at exit 216 at a lone Shell station in the middle of nowhere and call my parents. "Dad, I'm at exit 216 hanging out in the parking lot of a Shell station about 15 miles north of Eugene and I'm not going any farther-so meet us here."

The next hour of so of my life was constituted of putting Jonah in his beloved front carrier and walking him around the parking lot until he fell asleep (that's him and me pictured at the beginning of this entry-he's the one in the red hat resting on my chest). It's interesting to see who pulls into a gas station at 10:30 at night in the middle of nowhere. It's also interesting to think about the 2 gas station attendants..both teenagers..one with no front teeth..working at this place all night. Where do they live? Do they go to high school somewhere? Have they ever been robbed? Do they sneak free gas or snacks while they're there? Other thoughts I had..wondering when was the landscaping put in, what the folks at the ad agency who thought up the Shell advertisements plastered all around are doing right now, who is the sleeping driver in the semi truck behind the gas station, and of course, how much have I scarred my child for life by subjecting him to the last 60 miles of agony?

Anyway-mom and dad finally come to the rescue, and as is to be expected, the entire remaining ride to their house, the little boy sleeps. Total travel time for my 3 1/2 hour drive..about 7 hours.