the autobahn...

i always wondered what driving on the autobahn would be like. how can there not be a speed limit?? weird. dangerous. stressful. but i knew that eventually i would have to try, so i decided last friday was as good of time as any. one of my best friends, becky bayda, and her family also live in germany this season. her husband plays in nuremburg, which is only 50 minutes from ingolstadt. wyatt was traveling and we were stir crazy so we decided to make the trip to visit the baydas. the drive there was somewhat uneventful, but due to dead stopped traffic, we didn't get there until 4pm, instead of 2:30pm, as planned. my plan was to stay for a few hours and get home by dinner time. well, leaving nuremburg at 6pm would have been a disaster due to traffic as well, so we decided to stay for dinner. i was a little worried about driving home, on the autobahn in the dark to an empty house, but i didn't want the poor babies to sit in the car for 3 more hours in traffic. so we packed up at 8pm to head home. in my head it worked perfectly...birdie ate at 730, so she wouldn't need to eat until long after we were home, ruby was in jammies and fast asleep. oh my gosh, was i wrong!!

the drive started ok. uneventful. then it started to sprinkle. just a light rain. the girls were both asleep, so a light rain in the dark wasn't too bad. then it started to rain a bit harder. once it was a full on pour/snow, i sort of started to panic. but really, just because it's the autobahn doesn't mean i need to be driving ridiculously fast. and the girls were still asleep, so i could just take my time. then things took a turn for the worse...

ruby woke up and obviously was scared or had a bad dream or didn't know where she was, as she was SCREAMING. between her screams, she was sobbing. uncontrollably sobbing, which woke birdie, who also started to cry. they both needed their pacis. birdie's was clipped to her, so that was an easy find. she calmed down immediately. ruby's was nowhere to be felt! i tried reaching, but also knew i couldn't reach very far as i needed to stay safe. no paci. ugh. calla was still quiet, so i felt by her and her paci was out and she was asleep, so i one handedly unclipped her paci to give to ruby. she was so upset that she couldn't see that i was holding a paci out for her. right as she realized it and was reaching for it, i dropped the paci. NO!!!!! ruby had a cough/cold during this so she was coughing and crying simultaneously, which caused her to start gagging. well, she was so upset that she vomited on herself. this was while i was driving, on the autobahn, in a foreign country, in the pouring rain/snow. there were NO exits. literally none. so i pulled over. cars were zipping by me. but i had to get out. our car is too small to crawl to the back and of course, ruby is on the drivers side, so in order for me to get to her, i had to get out of the car. oh my gosh, talk about sweaty hands now!!! i got her somewhat cleaned up and then got back in the car. she didn't calm down at all. at this point, she was saying, "hand mama peeeeeease". she wanted to hold my hand. our car is a stick shift. she sits behind the drivers seat. i was on the autobahn. it was pouring rain. but i did it. i held that teeny, wrinkly hand for the remaining 30 minutes. my hand was asleep. my shoulder ached. but she was relaxed. anytime she started to whine or sound like she was going to cry, i started squeezing that little hand playing the "do you love me?" game. then she would squeeze back, "this much!" what an adventure for us! i have to admit i was very proud of myself. i could have easily joined in the crying, but figured that wouldn't do much good for the situation. i waited until wyatt called after his game :)