Yesterday was exciting. By exciting I mean shitty. By shitty I mean full of vomiting. Oh it was fun. And violent diarrhea. The kind of sick where you have to sit on the toilet and puke in the bath tub because everything is letting go at once no matter how you feel about it.

I’m sure you all wanted to hear that.

And apparently in Illinois they don’t sell make-you-stop-puking medicine over the counter. You have to go see a doctor. With my out of state insurance and two small children when I can barely stand up. Right. Pedialyte and prayer it is.

It did stop. *phew*

And while I was sick and sick our room key stopped working. Apparently if they give you two keys, using the second key makes the first key not work and then neither works. Why in the fuck did you give me two then?!

While fixing that I discovered that the person who said we could be in this room for eight nights… lied. Saturday night we have to get out. But the front desk people tried to convince me to go somewhere else for one night and come back.

Uhm, probably not.

I’ll go somewhere more expensive with a better bath tub and a door between me and the kids. So I can have sex. Cause after two months of abstinence I’m kinda tapping the floor.

But only for three nights. Whoa we are hemorrhaging money. I’ll come clean at the end of the year when I do my accounting. For now I’m watching the balance and wincing.

I mean, it’s not like we are getting low on money. Noah is better at earning money than I am at spending it. But I want to throw it all at my mortgage, not this trip. Which makes it a matter of priorities not safety.

That’s completely fucking crazy to me. I talked to a woman who likes to travel like me. But she has been stranded several times and she had to ask family to wire her money because she had literally $300 for the trip and that didn’t go far enough.

That’s why I traveled less when I was poor. It’s terrifying. I did it. But not like this. Travel means you run into so many situations where you just simply have to have money.

The god damn axel fell off my trailer. That’s going to cost some money. But I want to camp on it for at least another 9 weeks. Minimum of 9 more weeks. (Lots of time in hotels at Disney World and we get to stay with friends a fair bit.)

I feel like I’m going to have to get a better handle on managing my pain levels before I can do the around the world trip. I may have to devote serious work to healing my body so that I can do that labor. Right now it would be wicked hard.

I’m really enjoying traveling with the kids. They make everything fun and exciting. We spend so much time laughing.

The nice man who offered to tow our trailer has been texting me lists of things to do with the kids while we are here. Today we are going to the county fair. Because that sounds fun.

I will walk slowly. It’s going to be awfully hot.

Talked to my shrink yesterday. She asked how I can work more travel into my life on a smaller scale more frequent basis because this is very energizing for me. I love meeting new people. It is easier for me to emotionally self regulate in new environments. I always feel like I’m on a timer for when people will get sick of me. My anxiety increases as time passes instead of me feeling more comfortable and secure.

This is super annoying.

I’m really hard on my friends. I’m sorry.

When I am mostly only meeting new people it’s easier to keep up a “front” of personality. I may need assistance and I know that the only way I’m going to get it is if I am pleasing. So I keep it up when I’m going from new person to new person.

It’s hard to keep that mask up though. I’m a bitter, angry person. I wish that people didn’t need me to pretend to be happy and energetic in order to deserve being treated decently. It’s like a job.

A job I will never get paid for.

But I am finding that having *no* space for letting myself relax and be more natural is causing me to do better with the kids. I don’t like that. I mean, I’m taking out most points of stress too and that makes it easier to do better with the kids. Hard to tell what causes what. All I know is I’ve been doing remarkably little screaming for me. In two months, much of which has been stressful for one reason or another… I’ve barely screamed. Only a few times. Not even weekly.

That’s doing pretty good for me. Oh my poor children. Well, I say that because it sucks to have someone scream at you at all.

At least my kids get told, “When I scream at you it is because I am angry, frustrated, and I’m out of patience. It isn’t because you deserve being screamed at. That’s me messing up and I’m sorry. You never deserve being screamed at.”

I wasn’t told that as a child. It’s at least something.

I feel really bad that sometimes Eldest Child will say, “Generationally our family is doing much better. Your mom had it bad, you had it bad, I have it pretty darn good and my kids will have it even better!”

It feels weird and awkward.

I mean… I’m glad she thinks she has it pretty darn good. That’s nice to hear. My children assure me regularly that I am nice to them.

I really really really like traveling with my kids. It is a pleasure, joy, and full of laughter. I feel so loved.

The completely non-helpful streak in Duluth is over too. *phew* I think they need breaks from responsibility. Which totally makes sense because they are four and seven.

I just need to learn how to ride the waves better without freaking out about every up and down motion. This is hard.

I learn more and get better with every year.

I love watching the kids sleep together in a puppy pile. Melts my heart.