Ever have one of those moments where you think, “I don’t know if I can do this?”  About 200 miles into my drive back home, exhausted from interrupted sleep and with a screaming baby in my ear, I toyed with the idea of booking a room at the always pet friendly Days Inn.  Somehow I mustered up the nerve to continue on, but not without a few tears of my own. 

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I stopped to feed Babycakes some lunch at a Sheetz in West Virginia.  I pulled into a parking space near the building & near a patch of grass for Fur Baby.  With my diaper bag and a nervous pooch in my arms, I gently opened my door as to not bump into the two door creep mobile next to me.  “You’re okay, baby.” he squawked at me.  I cringed and ignored him, but planned what I would say next if he spoke to me again.  I was ready with tough girl fightin’ words if he dared. 

I let Babycakes eat her lunch unbuckled in her carseat while I stood next to her.  It took her over thirty minutes to gobble everything up and in that time, I watched a man with a rental truck towing a car try to maneuver around the gas pumps.  Uhm, please stop before you kill us all.  Then there was the fifty something man in nice clothes who pulled up in his top of the line Hyundai and disposed of two empty Budweiser cans.  I understand having open cans of cola in your car, but beer?  You’ll never guess what he bought at Sheetz.  Oh, yes… but six of them.  And the lady who pulled up next to me?  Two six packs!  I have never seen so much beer drinking on a Tuesday afternoon in all my life.  West Virginia’s slogan:  Open for Business.  How about “We Ain’t Workin’ & Sure Love Drinkin”.

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We had such a great time visiting with my family.  Little E keeps everyone entertained when she’s being her best self.  Sometimes she gets a little grumpy and melts like a popsicle in August.  On Monday afternoon, she and I had a nice time playing at the table.  While she was eating her lunch, she suddenly started to harshly clear her throat.  I don’t even know how to spell that sound.  “What’s the problem, love?” I asked.  “My ear feels tickly,” she replied.  I suggested that after lunch we could clean her ear with a Q-tip.  “No, I need to do it right now.”  I waited at the table while she climbed the stairs to fix her issue.  When she returned a few minutes later I asked, “Do you feel better?”

“Oh yes, Aunt Sara.  There was lellow stuff in my ear like the bottom of a candy corn.” 

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My dad is retired and he’s a bit of a stay-at-home grandpa meaning that he helps watch Little E while everyone is at work.  He takes her to the park, they run errands together, paint each other’s nails, and drive each other crazy.  My dad is a clean-up freak and Little E is “free years old”.  The first day that we were at the house, while everyone else was at work, Little E snuck her sippy cup of hot chocolate into the living room. 

“Uh oh.  I got some chocolate on my new footie jammies.”  I assured her that her mommy could wash them and get the stain out.  What I didn’t know, was that her cup also leaked onto my dad’s chair.  My dad’s yellow chair that he remembers exactly how much he paid for it.  With frustration in his voice and a dishrag in his hand, he rubbed out the chocolate stain and said,

“I have had it with her drinking.”

“Hello, my name is Little E.  I am free years old.  I have a drinking problem.”