We made it back in one piece. I need to get a t-shirt printed up “I survived driving to West Palm with 3 kids.” Honestly, the drive there wasn’t so bad. I threatened the kids that if they acted up I would turn the car around and head home. They barely spoke one peep the entire 4 hour drive-which was very nice for me as I journeyed back in time with my ipod. Now that I think about it, maybe it was my insane belting out of songs that scared the kids into compliance. I probably did sound like I had lost it as I poured my heart out with Tracey Chapman and jazzed with Jamiroquai.

The best and worst part of the drive? We got to drive through the couhn-try. We city folk don’t get to see many cows around these parts and cows and horse are all we looked at for a good 2 solid hours. The kids were excited the first 7 or so farms we passed than settled down to a nice hum of “are we there yet?” and ” Mummy, I dropped my ______. Can you get it?” And since I was doing a silly thing like driving and there were no other adults with me to grab the said dropped items, I had to decline, which was met with a heartwarming whine and such. Beautiful moments, I must say. The good part was that I saw like a bazillion little farm stands and I was so excited thinking about all the fresh plump produce I would be stopping to buy on the way home. I even saw a little building that was selling their fresh killed cow meat. Ok, so maybe that isn’t as exciting as the veggies, but it made me smile. Little did I know that on the way back when I planned to buy all these wonderful crop items, it would not only be raining lovebugs that would blind my windshield, but little drops of the coveted water so scarce to these parts in Florida. Unfortunately, the 2 combined just created a disgusting mess on my window so bad that I could hardly see despite my tedious stops to clean the stupid thing. Not only did the combo blind drivers, but it sent the farmers into hiding and not selling their wares.

Once at my MIL’s we had a nice relaxing time. It really amazes me how doing a lot of nothing completely wears me out. At one point, I was actually counting down the minutes until the day would end because I was so bored and annoyed at my children and I couldn’t wait to be back at home stressing myself out and actually holding some clout when I asked my kids to do something. They also wore themselves out eating as much junk food as they could stuff into their mouths and acting like I never taught them one manner in their entire lives. They quickly learned the art of “getting whatever I” want by simply carrying on whenever I told them “no” so that Grandma would say “yes.” They acquired many a new toys this way along with unbelievable amounts of disgusting sugar laden food. One child perfected this art so well that I spent the night cleaning up his copious amounts of throw-up.

Overall though, I did enjoy my time with my MIL. She is such a loving grandmother and I am thankful that I did end of with such a nice mother-in-law. We had some great talks and I had opportunity to learn more about her and “her country (Korea).” I love listening to all her stories and theories on life and enjoyed our time together. She always downplays herself as un-educated because she had a rough life growing up in Korea and could not afford to go to school, but I honestly think her musings on people are some of the smartest I have ever heard. I really love my MIL and am so glad that I finally took the plunge to drive over and see her. We had laughs, good food and throw-up- what more can you ask for?

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