The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

Do you see this cute little boy?  Doesn't he look sweet?  This picture was taken moments before he snuck away and pooped on the lawn in front of a business.  Andrew was sleeping in the car, taking a break before we get some more miles behind us. We were in some state (I have no idea, they all started to blur together at this point) where I was taking the kids out with their scooters so they could stretch their legs.  Everything was fine enough until suddenly an explosion on unpleasantness happened.  Jack, who had been sleeping peacefully in the car was now awake and not very happy about it, William was crying because he did not know how to scooter as fast as Israel and Israel was … gone.  This kid was no where to be seen so I left the crying ones to hunt down the boy who cannot be trusted.  I found him.  It is not uncommon for Israel to slip away and at the most inconvenient moment pull his pants down and poop in public.  We had talked about this, many times in fact, but alas I have compiled enough poop stories from that child that I could start a whole other blog based only on those stories.  But I will spare you that.  Oh did I mention that it had also begun to rain all of the sudden?
I raced over to Israel but I was way too late.  The deed is being done and there's no stopping a thing like that.  Unfortunately, he failed to pull his pants down far enough and accidentally peed into them during this affair.  Baby screaming, five year old wailing, six year old popping a squat for the employees on their smoke break to see, in the rain.  Andrew had no clue.  He had been driving for many hours straight and was rendered unconscious as the wheel of the car.  He was very insistent that he drive all the way from California to Massachusetts by himself because the trailer swayed so badly.  Therefore he was so spent that we had to stay in this parking lot while I helped Israel change out of his soiled pants and gave William my phone to watch a movie and nursed Jack while sitting on a booster seat and about ten days of road trip debris.  Things were not sunshine and roses anymore.  This road trip was now in full speed meltdown mode and as soon as we roused Andrew and hit the road again we were all in a sour mood.
We were so fed up with the car that we all took turns having tantrums.  Jack was feeling so poorly about being shoved into his rear facing car seat that he had now taken to screaming his sweet little head off the entire time, only being soothed by me clamoring into the backseat and half sitting on Israel's lap to lean myself over the carseat and nurse Jack.  Yes, folks, Jack refused to take a bottle of any kind and therefore I had no other ideas.  I contorted myself over that carseat and did the only thing that would calm Jack down, it was a sight to be seen.  But moms do stuff like that, we are all slightly crazy.

The states began to fly by; Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and finally very late at night we rolled into Massachusetts. We had no specific city as a destination now so we just drove till we could drive no more and wound up in a motel in Worchester.  As soon as we dragged our weary bones into the building a warm waft of body odor and other human odors stung my nostrils.  The motel reminded me of the movie Precious and as we entered our room I beheld what looked like a prime location for drug deals and prostitution.  New England is sort of known for their bed bug issues so we peeled away the blankets and inspected the beds.  So far so good.  The walls and floor of the room were stained and the odors were overwhelming.  But our exhaustion compelled us to stay.
When Andrew went down to the car to retrieve our bags, I attempted to calm the boys down and put them to bed.  Hours of being cooped up in the car led to a fury of hyperactivity and they were like animals running and howling and climbing the drapes.  While putting Jack into his pajamas the boys were running back and forth across the room, I turned my head to tell them to stop when my voice was drowned out by a blood curdling scream.  It was Israel.  I ran to see what was the matter and found him on the floor, his face covered in blood and the screams intensifying.  He was holding his nose and his hands and arms were now drenched in blood too.  Quickly I picked him up and placed him on the bed trying to

find out what happened.  After ruining several towels I was able to slow the blood flow and see where it was coming from.  His nose was black and his faced was beginning to swell.  I knew that his nose was broken.  He had run, tripped and instead of landing on the floor he fell with full momentum onto the metal bed frame and immediately shattered his dear little nose.  Long about this time, Andrew shows up with the luggage.  The room looks like a scene from CSI with blood on the sheets and the towels and me and Israel.  He went to us and I told him what happened and that I was sure that it was a broken nose.  By this time Israel was calming down, Andrew looked at his nose and didn't feel like it was broken so we cleaned him up and put him to bed.  We all went to bed soon after that and thus ended one of the worst days of my life. In the middle of the night I woke to check in on Israel and found that his face was swollen to the point of looking slightly like the elephant man.  I also went to visit the restroom and was cornered by a large aggressive spider.  Normally I may have been deterred by this but I was in no mood for nonsense so I killed that ghetto spider with the wrath of a thousand suns and went back to bed.  Once morning came, we backed up and drove as far away from that slummy motel as we could.  On our way out of the drive way, we realized that we were in the same parking lot as a drug rehab center and in the worst possible part of an already not so nice city.
Now poor Israel was in misery and his eyes were nearly swollen shut.  He saw his reflection and cried at how ugly he looked.  We drove into a really beautiful part of Massachusetts called Bedford and got a motel there.  After taking Israel to the local urgent care the x-rays confirmed that his nose was broken and there really wasn't anything we could do about it but to keep him comfortable.

 The photo to the right is an image of the motel that became home for us for quite some time.  It was clean(ish) and right in the middle of beautiful Bedford and near Lexington with the famous fall leaved of New England and the stunning sights of historic towns and cemeteries.  We made this place our home base as we scoured craigslist for places for rent.  Days passed and no one wanted to rent to a family with no income and only a promise of a savings account that could cover rent until the income began.  We prayed for open doors but they were all slamming in our faces.  The motel was eating into our savings and we needed to find a solution quickly.  Daily we went out in search of a home, driving all day and coming back to the motel, exhausted and frustrated.  We were living on fast-food and prayers.  We were used to paying $850 for a rental but here the cheapest apartments were $1300 and in very dangerous neighborhoods.  Every town we went to the door kept slamming.  We called on everything even if it was way outside of our budget.  We needed a home and quick.  One day my little William asked, "Mom, are we homeless?"  I quickly replied, "No! … Well, sort of."