Anyhoo, I always like to allow an extra 15-20 minutes when I know I'll be traveling I-10. It's just too unpredictable.
However, no sooner had I driven two doors down the street from the house, Austin's food pump started to alarm. Well, no worries. I had that extra time budgeted in. I just pulled to the curb and took about 10 minutes to get the sucker pumping food again. And off we went.
I got to the end of the street, made a right, and then a left at the end of that street. As we were passing the school, I glanced in the mirror and Austin's heavy head, even with his Hensinger head support collar, had already fallen forward off his headrest and was resting on his arm.
What the...?! I pulled into the school parking lot and quickly put his head back in position, reclined his chair a bit more so that it would be harder to fall forward, jumped back into the driver seat, made a U turn, and was back on the road.
At the end of the street we made a left and stopped at the light at the entrance to the subdivision. Thankfully, it was quick, and I was off the mark in no time, making a sweet left onto the parkway.
Dee doo, dee doo, dee doo...
Seriously...?! His pump was alarming again. That's it. I hit the hazard lights, pulled off onto the shoulder and into the gravel, waited for all the 65 mph traffic to pass, got out of the van, yanked open the side door (it actually doesn't "yank" because its one of those electric, automatic doors...but in my mind, I YANKED it), and shut down that dang pump.
Sorry Austin. But mommy's out of buffer time so no food for at least an hour, dude.
He's cool. He's got his Diego and Dora movie that's been on repeat in the van since he was 3 years old. We proceed in a cautious manner to merge back onto the road.
The podcast is delightfully entertaining as I am now zipping down the 303 at the comfortable speed of 9 over. For the most part, I'm just letting the cruise control merrily do it's job as it adjusts to the speeds in front of me. If I feel it putting on the brakes too much, I just check over my shoulder, and blinker my way around the slower traffic.
I peek at Austin in the rearview mirror. He's still cool...although starting to look a little wiggly, rotating his head back and forth and not just watching his movie.
As we finally leave the 303 and merge with the 10, Austin has gone from silently wiggly to full blown "I'm uncomfortable" or "something ain't right" mode which means major ear piercing, periodic whiny/screamy noises.
Which are my favorite.
I debated whether or not to exit the 10 since I was already in the HOV lane and clipping along nicely. We were about 30 minutes out from PCH assuming all went to plan at this point. I assessed him in the rear view mirror and decided there wasn't much I could really adjust at this point and that I'd try to use my words and reason with him instead of my usual gritting teeth and bearing it.
I turned off my podcast and took a deep breath:
"Austin, I know something's wrong right now, and you're trying your best to tell me what it is, but mommy is driving right now so I can't help you at this time. So I need you to try to calm down and be quiet if you can because your yelling hurts mommy's ears. I will be able to help you in about 30 minutes, etc..."
This reasoning continued for the next 10 minutes or so. I went into every detail of talking about what might be wrong and how I would fix it when we arrived, but that right now I couldn't because I was driving.
And then I stopped talking because I realized he had stopped whining!
It was as if he understood all my words, as if he understood that 30 minutes was a bearable time limit that he could stand, and as if he understood my predicament and so he was going to suck it up and take one for the team. I don't know. But it freaking worked! Heck. Maybe I bored him to silence because of my droning on and on. LOL.
But it worked. And I tried it on the way home when we were 30 minutes out as he was fussing because he had gotten his stinkin' head off the headrest again. (Seriously, ya'll. He's a little houdini with that headrest.)
So I told him, "I saw what you did." And "why don't you try to get your head back up, etc...." (I swear he tried at least two times to get his head back on the headrest with a quirky smile after trying each time.)
So, I guess I don't know what to think. Maybe he knows more than he lets on. Maybe someday someone will teach him how to use some kind of communication device, and we will find out what's been going on in that noggin of his. Maybe he's just milking this non verbal thing for all its worth because he gets to watch his shows all day.
Oh my gosh. I bet that's it!
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