Amy's story: Kids & first long trip

End of year holiday are coming out soon. I believe many of you have packed bags to go somewhere far, alone or with your little family. It reminds me of my last trip last mid year when I finally had chance to visit my parents in laws village in Purworejo.

After Hery comfirmed that we would leave this town for a couple days during the long weekend in June, I was quite nervous. Not only because we would bring our kids but also the fact that we would stay in my mother in laws childhome. Well, I have a big feeling that it would not seem like I want it to be. But then my older brother told me, "just pretend u will be going for a field study." I never had a field study before. I studied literature, and places like libraries n book store were my only destination. Then I tried to remember my friend's story when she took KKN back when we were college. From her description, I slowly try to ease my nervous.


But you know, things are going a little bit harder in the reality. That's life. It started when Hery changed his plan to use rent car to go to Purworejo instead of train like we discussed before. Then, he add one nephew to company my old mother in laws during the trip.

On the big day, me and the kids had to wait till midnight to go because Hery refused to come home earlier and that made him very late and the rent car came even more late because he needed to change the car while the traffic was like hell during the last day before long weekend. I tried so hard to entertain the kids because they know we will have a trip and have seen their Amy busied with packaging and other stuff by myself. I even brought them to the mal (thank u God, it was very near) to buy fun stuff that they can use on the road.

But when their father arrived, Safir started to throw up. Again n again. Everytime we put something in, he would throw them out. Hery was very worry and he asked me to postpone the trip untill tomorrow morning. I said, hell no. I'd rather bring Safir to the car now and throw up on the road rather than stay at home and dealing a throw up kid and not going anywhere.

I was sure that he thought I was so selfish. Then he said, 'Let's try until we pick up mom. If he still throw up then we cancelled the trip untill he was doing fine."

I just nodded at that time, because I was very sure that Safir was also in his climax of waiting for the big thing.

When finally the rentcar arrived, Safir still threw up. Even when we were in the elevator. Amazingly when he touch the seat, he fell asleep in a sudden. And never threw up until we came back to Jakarta.

ON THE ROAD
The Pantura route was hell. Due to broken road and their attempt to fix it, our car were hard to move. It was not only boring but also caused problem when Malika was hard to fall asleep in the unmove car. While her brother slept on my lap, I asked Malika to sit on the other lap and tell her stories while I hold her. Just like we used to do on bed. I need her to go to sleep because she was very noisy asking too many question when I too needed a rest. And fifteen minutes later, she fell asleep. Thank you God.

This kind condition, holding two sleeping kids on my laps, was kind of favorite for the kids at the moment. It's killing me but I'd rather take that as a compliment.

This torture, I mean this traffic made us hit Puworejo after 15 hours on the road while normally we could make it for 8 hours. The same hours that we spend when we came back to Jakarta though we drove from Semarang. Oh dear God ...

THE FOOD
It has been my big concern to bring various food and snack for the trip. Though Hery said that there were many alfamart in Purworejo but I also remember scenes in movies when people got trapped during their trip and one thing that made them survive was food supply. And this traffic was one of that kind of thing.

Spending too much time in the car, sleeping, were making my kids didn't really want to eat. Especially Safir, because weeks before we go he had ill and his appetite hadn't recover. And I was quite happy when the kids spent their time in the car eating koko crunch or happy tos.

I wish I could bring more foods because apparently things were ... Well .. Not enough. But, we survived =D

THE MOOD
This is big, i must say. Though my father used to take us to along road to get into some delicious padang restaurat, we also have bad habbit for that. U know when things didn't run like we expected, we tended to piss off. And it will ruin the mood for the whole day.

That's why I was pretty intense reminding to calm myself. I repeatedly say Strawberry Shortcake's lyrics. 'a little bump in the road, just keep going on, and you will be just fine.' I also remember that if I got piss off, so will the children. Keep positive.

But unfortunately these positivity meet its challenge. My mother in law. Can't blame her, though. She was an old woman. What can you expect? And it got worse when we were lost, well actually not lost but taking the wrong road, the very harder and longer route. And since we realised that we were taking the wrong way untill we finally arrived two hours late, my mother in law kept complaining. And during the road, I don't know how many time should I remind myself. That what she did had nothing different with my father, that's why I need to keep clam. But because I was also tired with two kids sleeping on my lap, I finally said something sharp just to make her stop complaining. Just once. I wish I had my music with me =/

FUN under the RAIN
yup, don't let bad things took away the fun. Though it was not perfect but at least the kids still feel happy. Though it was raining all day since we arrived in Purworejo and we would not able to play on sawah. And we almost ran out of dried clothes. Or even when we were trap in rain while we were trying to climb up Borobudur and finally got on top totally wet. Or when the rain fell down too in Semarang and I was failed to visit the largest mosque and the tionghoa mosque. We were still having fun. What else can we do, right?

And what make it special, this was my first and last trip with my mother in law because a month later she passed away. And she closed her eyes with the memory of Malika singing 'naik delman' over and over again when we were on delman in Borobudur. Thank you for the opportunity, God.