about that one time that we were spontaneous and I do an ugly cry but it all turns out ok thanks to the interwebs

It’s Thursday at 1:00. The blur of first birthday stuff, family guests, and news segment prep were finally starting to clear. DanO calls me from work. “Hey, I think we should drive down to Chicago tomorrow.”

(And those of you who just panicked that we’re rubbing elbows with the NATO protests, no worries. When we say “Chicago” in this family, we mean the incredibly suburban Wheaton, IL which is where DanO and I met and went to college. I haven’t seen but one skyscraper on this trip.)

Just like that we were less than 24 hours from a 7 hour road trip with two kids two and under (good thing I did that segment on family trips, huh?)

To be fair, we were planning on taking the trip already, but were going to leave Saturday. O and we had done absolutelyzero packing or planning. Thursday night I did laundry like a desperate housewife and after DanO worked a half day, we managed to get in the car and on the road by 11:45am on Friday.

With one entirely unexplained standstill of an exception, the road trip went fantastically. The boys were content and entertained themselves well, we were able to line up potty/eating/gas stops, and we made great time. We stopped and visited with friends first thing when we got into town and pushed our sweet boys to their bedtime limits. We headed to the hotel at 9.

Opening the door in the hotel parking lot, we heard ad loud HISSING noise, none other than the hissing of pressurized air escaping from our tire really, really quickly.

That, friends, is the hunk of metal that imbedded itself in our tire in the hotel parking lot.

This is where DanO deserves accolades from here to the moon because he took this set back so very well. We heard the hissing, accepted the reality of the situation, and went into the hotel to put the boys down. We’d deal with the tire (change it to a spare, make plans to have it fixed in the morning) after our very patient, very tired boys were sleeping.

“We’re out of cribs. I’m so sorry. There is a 24 hour Meyers down the street that may carry portable cribs you could purchase?”

Except for, you know, needing a functional car to drive to a store and buy a crib at 10 o’clock at night. 

Cue: ugly cry in front of the customer service desk.

Again. DanO? Steadfast as a boulder. Me? A sloppy puddle on the floor.

So what do you do at 10pm when you’re 7 hours from home with a hissing tire and no way to contain your very mobile 1 year old in a hotel room?

(Right after tweeting your frustrations, obviously,) You wipe off your tears, decide against marching down to the lobby and cussing someone out, put every mattress in the whole dang place on the floor in your hotel room and you throw a big ‘ol slumber party. (Family bed for the win!)

Except then this happened:

True story.

This is the beauty of the interwebs to me. This is the give and take of the online community. The support and living-life-together that can happen when people share their lives in this world wide web of space.

I may have introduced you to sunscreen wipes and you might loan me your pack and play when we’re visiting your city. Beautiful. Simply beautiful.

(This is the part where we all have a big group hug of our laptops and braid each others’ hair.)