What would we do without DQ?

Parenting Tip #26
Never, under any circumstance, decided to take an hour and a half car trip after your children wake up from their naps.


"Why didn't you take the trip during their nap time so they would sleep the whole way" someone like my idiot husband might ask...Because I was too damn busy cutting coupons and doing what I wanted to do for a change, that's why. Boy does selfishness come with great consequence. 

After only twenty minutes into the car ride Mary-Wilkes started crying.  But not just a little whimpering, I'm talking full fledged blood curdling, stomach turning screams.  The kind that made me pull over at Sack-o-Suds Country Store on hwy16 to give her a bottle and then screech tires to get the hell out of there.  If you have ever seen Sack-o-Suds you would know what I'm talking about; It is creepy, run down, and looks like it's run by the cast of Deliverance.  (My aunt claims they have good barbecue though.)

Ten minutes after that I look in the rear view mirror to see that Libby Houdini, has taken both of her arms out of her car seat straps and is attempting to unbuckle the lap harness.  Without really thinking I just start yelling.  "Put your arms back in the straps, now...right now...Libby I said NOW!"  Houdini turns back into Libby and starts crying, the crying quickly turns into screaming which upsets Mary-Wilkes and makes her lose her propped up bottle and start screaming too.  Tears form in my eyes.  We are still forty minutes away from home and they are not letting up at all.  The mistiness in my eyes turns into rolling drops going down my face.  As I pick up my phone to call Tad (and tell him how this is all his fault) the clouds part and heaven shines down a beam of glittering light onto a glossy white sign that reads "Dairy Queen".  I look back at Libby with tear stained cheeks and say "You want some ice cream!?" Alas, she stops screaming and looks at me with smiling eyes and says "cweam!"  One screaming baby down, one more to go.

As I pull up to the drive thru I order :
Me -Yes, I would like one small dipped cone and one small regular cone.
Drive Thru Man - any thing else?
Me - Yes, please make the regular cone REALLY small.  Like only one bump high.  It's for a two year old.
Drive Thru Man - okay, one really small dipped cone.
Me - No, a regular small dipped cone and a really small regular cone.
Drive Thru Man - Please drive around to the window

Needless to say we both got small cones, only one bump high...I guess that is what I get for being a pain in the ass and for cutting my coupons all morning.

Before we leave in pull into the parking lot and get out of the car (while balancing a cone in one hand) to buckle Libby back up correctly, sooth Mary-Wilkes, then lose my one and only ice cream bump to the asphalt; this is because I chose to eat off all the chocolate. And before you say anything, where the heck was I supposed to set the cone down?  I look at the ground, and without making a sound get back into the car and head for home. 

Libby only dropped ice cream in her lap once on the way home, she also ate half of the paper around the cone before I noticed and managed to passed out just as we pulled onto our street.  I have to say, as I watched her enjoy having her first very own cone I realized that this was going to be a moment I wouldn't forget.  I know i'll never forget how sweet her face looked when I handed her the whole thing, or how her eyes lit up as she took bite after bite.  Her first taste of independence was every bit as sweet as her treat.  To her it was nothing more then ice cream, but to me it was so much more; it was Libby growing up...and no longer needing me to hold the cone.