Now over the years we’ve all been on at least one family holiday, either as a child, tween (a mysterious pre-teenage creature), adult or parent. I know I’ve been on many family holidays all over the place; ranging from state-wide, to interstate and even overseas (well over the ditch to New Zealand). Most have been great packed full of memories with cousins and laughter but there is also a couple which can only be described, as well hell wrapped in a bow. Literally family carnage trapped in a confined space i.e. the tin can that is our family car. Growing up where I did, any family holiday we took always started with a looooong drive (usually to jump on a plane) – around 1,000km. I remember many successful and failed car games, counting the number of things we saw i.e. emus, a certain colour car, caravans and then there was always the favourite of who got the most waves from oncoming traffic. There was also the “rock off” to see who got the very back seat aka the sin bin (usually me for stirring up my youngest brother).

Very recently, I was lucky enough to partake in my first family holiday as a parent – just a casual 1,900km cross country visit to my husband’s unsuspecting family. My better half is the tall (6”4) and silent type, well at least until he feels comfortable around people. He’s a gentle giant but he’s my equivalent of the BFG (big friendly giant). So BFG, came up with (as he thought) the remarkably good idea that driving versus instead of flying, stating that it was the perfect way to catch up on some quality time together because things in our travelling circus had been a bit hectic lately. Plus it’ll be fun to take our little budda on an adventure (but mainly because of the amount of sh*t that has to be carted around to care for a mini human). It really is amazing how something (well sometimes they really are a thing) the size of a small dog can accumulate more clothing, furniture and accessories than both my giant and I combined!

Blast off is around 4:30am, around 5 hours later on the “short cut” somewhere along a dirt road in random nowhere, my intense Game of Thrones love affair was disrupted by “hey, is that milk or vomit around budda’s mouth?” Somewhat grumpily, I drag my eyes out of my book to see – yes you guessed it – traces of vomit. As the car screeches to a halt and I resentfully slide the iPad shut; I hear this god awful screaming of “NO! NO! OH MY GOD NO!” from the direction of the driver’s seat. Curious by what exactly has triggered such a traumatic meltdown, I turn to what I can honestly only describe as something straight out of a movie…..a scary mothers worst nightmare movie. A fat white worm – no a tube – of vomit shooting towards the back of my head rest, at what I’m sure (despite BFG’s claims) was the speed of light. So there I was with a dry reaching BFG heaving by the bullbar, trying to unbuckle a car seat while soothing a hysterical toddler and minimise spew contact with myself and our now very smelly car.

Once all the spew coated baby junk (clothing, blankets, toys, car seat) was hurled from the car, super mum had her moment to shine when low and behold stashed in the bottom of the nappy bag was my trusty container of bicarb soda = winning! I hastily rubbed it and sand into the car seat and stuffed all yukky clothes, blankets and spew coated toys into a random plastic bag found on the floor and shoved it as far into the back as I could. Re-dressing budda was another matter; it’s what I would imagine trying to stuff an octopus into a crochet bag is like. That night we manage to find a motel with a guest laundry in Thargomindah = small victories!! Budda is relishing in the freedom of the motel room by running laps like a nascar driver yelling at the top of his lungs – thank god we’re down the back of the motel…..all spew stuff is now drying in a Chinese laundry set up in our room and budda is finally passed out in some random contorted position – *sigh* think I’ll just tilt the television to enjoy a movie while BFG is in the shower………To say I immediately regretted this decision was an understatement….as the television suddenly fell out of the wall and into my (as my brother likes to call them) small carnie hands! BFG appears dripping from the shower to my cries of panic in total disbelief of what has happened. After about 30 minutes of much swearing, the television is back on the wall and I am ordered to “go to sleep and touch nothing until we leave”. At least we’re still laughing about it – things can only go up from here right?