Peeing our way to Michigan
The Wife won't be giving birth until the end of the year, but I might not be able to wait that long before I start employing diapers.
I may want to get them next weekend, when we leave for a four-day holiday-slash-wedding stresstravaganza in scenic Michigan. Getting there will require a 10-hour drive through flood-damaged Wisconsin and car-flooded Chicago -- in a car with a four-year-old and a pregnant mom. The following is an excerpt of how I expect the majority of the drive to go.
***
Me: (Driving slightly over the speed limit, obeying all traffic laws and closely monitoring my fellow highway drivers) Does anybody want to sing another travel song? How about 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall? Last time we got to 79 before we got sick of it and quit! C'mon! Let's try to get to 50!
Wife: I have to pee.
Me: OK my pregnant wife! (Immediately stops at a rest area, waits several minutes while standing around and whistling before The Wife emerges from the restroom; everybody gets in and we return to the highway)
Boy: I have to go potty!
Me: WHAT? Why didn't you say ...
Wife: I have to pee.
Me: But we just left the rest area!
***
The result of this is that the 10-hour drive will take us about four days, meaning that we should probably leave for Michigan right now.
I have admitted this several times before, but I'm a total nut when it comes to traveling. We usually drive when we travel, because the only thing I hate more than using our current customer-loathing air travel system is ... um ... well, being castrated with a dirty butter knife or having my arm removed from its socket by a rabid marmoset.
When I'm driving, I want it to be over as quickly as possible. We leave early to avoid as many cities' rush hours as possible and we make only a few strategic rest stops -- basically, The Wife usually has to beat me over the head to get me to make a brief potty stop.
Yet this time she'll be pregnant, and as she's said to me about 1,914 times since that glorified Popsicle stick informed us that The Boy would arrive, the baby sits directly on her bladder the entire pregnancy. So she has to go to the bathroom constantly. On a long drive she'd be beating me over the head pretty much the entire time.
And pregnant wives are scary. The Wife in her Normal State would never even think of beating me over the head, though it probably crosses her mind from time to time ... every hour. The Pregnant Wife probably wouldn't either, but for some reason I keep thinking she would.
So we'd stop every time she said anything that remotely sounded like "pee." But my get-me-there-right-now-dammit gene would be fighting it every step of the way so I look like Steve Martin in "All of Me" as I'm trying to exit to the nearest rest stop. If I don't be careful, I might split myself in two.
But it would still be better than flying.
My next stop will be this site right here.
16 What is he talking about???:
At first I misread it as "diaphragm" and I thought, uh, hell no.
If gas wasn't so darn expensive I'd suggest you rent a Winebego.
And where you're going ... they really don't need you guys to add to their already flooded conditions.
Stop. At every rest stop you find. And it still won't be enough.
well so long as you have the perspective that this is preferable to flying you should manage to keep your sanity intact.
i have to pee too
I made my wife sit thru PTA's "Magnolia" a few days before giving birth. Every 15 minutes, she'd have to go and then I'd have to fill her in. She's never forgiving me ... for many reasons.
It is a bit difficult to feel sympathy since, I'm assuming you are the sperm-donor in this particular pregnancy scenario, you share the culpability for putting that fetus on the wife's bladder...so just man-up and plan on lots of stops dude.
However, I'm not heartless - I suggest that you either contact the crazy astronaut woman for a couple of her extra-strength depends or visit your local medical supplies store and buy the pregnant wife a catheter and supply a milk jug.
Just a suggestion.
I think your driving strategy is much like my late father's was when I was a kid. The car stops for one of two reasons: reaching the ultimate destination or need to buy gas. We learned early to take advantage of any available restroom when we encountered it. Also, we learned to grab the car keys as soon as we could drive and oddly he never minded it when we stopped anywhere we wanted along the way.
Dorky Dad, you had me cracking up with this one! LOL!!
Hopefully your road trip with The Prego Wife won't turn out to be quite the way you think but.., um...from experience I can probably assume there will be more stops and frustrations than you even imagine at this point. hehehe
"Are we there yet?!" :)
I was just in Hancock, Michigan Fathers Day weekend...
On your way through Flooded Wisconsin, Stop in Central Wisconsin and Say hello.. Its beatiful here....
Have a Safe Trip !!
OMG. You will never make it at that speed...
Okay, I need to read back some posts, clearly. So, um, congratulations!
In my second pregnancy, when our bedroom was upstairs and our only bathroom downstairs, I learned to pee in a well-shaped piece of tupperware.
You know you wanted to know that.
Best of luck. I'll duck if I see Chicago explode as you pass through.
Could you please publish a book of your graphs and flowcharts?
Just steer away from the potholes for wifey, K?
She and her bladder will thank you.
Pregnant wives are fear-inspiring. Pregnant women may be one of natures miracles but they are also a force of nature. Beware
Can't she get one of those little potties like kids have to pee in? Gosh...
My Boy was kicking me in the bladder the entire 9 months. It was truly pleasant. Luckily I already have a bladder the size of a peanut so Hubby was used to this whole "I gotta pee" thing on long trips.
What about a mild sedative for the passengers? They can awake at the destination rested and ready to urinate only the one time.
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