Parenting Skillz, I Has Them

This is the third week of the first intersessionary period for my kids. We do the year-round thing because, oh my fucking God, if we didn't, there'd be troubles. As such, we get four of these "intersessions" throughout the year. It's nice, because they get three weeks off in the fall, winter and spring and six in the summer. It's also nice because, heh heh, you're getting on my nerves--oh look! It's time to go back to school! Huzzah!

As luck would have it, my mother-in-law just happened to be in the southeast last week and volunteered to take the little rapscallions with her for a week and a half. It's been nice, because I was able to fall asleep on the couch in front of the football game Saturday night watch the Notre Dame game on Saturday night uninterrupted.

See, when they're here, they tend to drive me a bit nuts. I'm not saying something that any other parent in the world hasn't thought at least once, maybe twice...an hour after procreating. Being that they're nine and six, there is a lot of arguing, nyah-nyahing and back-and-forth that causes that vein in my temple to throb and for me to seriously consider getting in the car, finding an abandoned mountainside, and setting up a shack. The only problem is, I'd have to polish up my moonshinin' and rough-talkin' skills in order to survive.

*brandishes a large stick* Git! Git! *practices conjugating 'tcheer'* I might just be able to do this!

No! No! Appalachia is not the answer!

Anyway, this weekend, I have to go and pick them up. The nice thing is, my mother-in-law meets me halfway (in this, at least. The kitchen floor that isn't quite messy enough to mop but still has some dirt on it? Notsomuch.) This means that I'll be spending twelve to fourteen hours in a car, but it will at least be a round-trip effort. We usually meet up in a little town called Marietta, Ohio, which sits right on the river. It's actually a nice little place. They have a brewpub that I visited once, in the time Before, when I could still imbibe of the beverages crafted from fermented grains.

While this seems like a sweet deal, the drive through West Effin' Virginia is not exactly trivial. For comparison, here is what my mother-in-law's drive looks like:



Oh, very nice, very nice indeed. Straight lines. One turn. Good roads the whole way. Not a bad day's worth of driving. Now, let's see what my drive looks like:



HOLY FUCKING HELL! Is that a trip itinerary, or did someone have a bad reaction to their drugs while holding a red crayon???

To say the roads are a bit windy in an understatement as I-77 snakes its way through the Appalachians while transversing that part of Virginia that did not wish to secede from the Union. And the roads cling to the side of the mountain with very little between you and a lifetime of snuggling down in the hairy, sweaty bosom of an Appalachian beauty (gender neutral), eating spam, swilling ditch water and serving as their personal sex dump. I run the risk of looking down to change the radio, sliding off the road, and suddenly finding myself squealing like a pig, Ned Beatty-style.

Is that banjo music I hear in the background, or am I just paranoid?

However, despite all this, I'm heading north this weekend, traveling through four states, to reclaim my wonderful lil punkins. Because, despite the fact that the house has remained clean, there's very little in the way of spillage on the floor in the kitchen, and football time is wonderfully--gloriously--quiet, I miss the little gits. I'm sure I'll be glad to have them home once more.

For about a week. And then I'll be rethinking my desire to go live in a shack on the side of the mountain. *tunes banjo*