Excerpt: Travelling With Kids

“There is no more room honey.” I said, the exasperation in my voice as evident as the cloud of steam my breath made in the frosty air.
“Well we can’t leave it behind Will!” Mariah answered, her exasperation just as evident though without the cloud of steam. I sighed deeply and took the box from her and trudged back across the parking lot to the car. I heard her shut the door behind me and I wished that I could sit inside with the baby while she packed the car.
I opened the back door carefully so that nothing would fall out. We had traded our two-door in for a sedan six months ago in preparation for the arrival of our first child. Then we realized, that even though there were twice as many doors, there actually seemed to be less room than before. No matter, nothing had to be back there but one infant seat anyway, so there was no need to find something bigger. Yet. Then, it came time to move.
Being in the military meant that moving was somewhat simplified. The movers came on time, packed up our few belongings and left us with an empty house. Well, mostly empty. Mariah kept on carrying more and more to the back bedroom that we had clearly designated as off-limits to the movers. I kept telling her that we would not have room for it all, but she simply dismissed me with a flick of her hand. “Well, we can’t do without this for a month, so we will just have to find room.” Now, I was the one with the responsibility of finding room.
Despite my care, grocery bag filled with baby diapers fell out onto the hard packed snow of the parking lot. I cursed under my breath as the scattered out across the dirty snow. I set the box on the top of the car and knelt down to gather them up. When they were all back in the bag I tied the top closed firmly and set them on top of the car next to the box. I stuck my head inside and considered carefully how I could re-pac the car to include one more box.
Ten minutes later, I had everything stuffed back into the car. The infant seat looked like it was at the bottom of a deep canyon between piles of stuff. I had long ago given up any hope of seeing out the back window; it was stuffed full of stuff as well. As long as there was room for the baby, we would make it just fine.
A plaintive meow came from somewhere in the pile of stuff, and I stuck a finger through the airhole in the cat carrier that formed the foundation of one of the sides of the canyon.
“It’s all right Figaro, just go to sleep. We will be in Utah in a few hours, and then you can get out and explore Grandma and Grandpa’s house.” I had tried to figure out an affordable way to sedate the cats for the trip, but the vet’s suggestion of medication was way beyond the budget of an Army Specialist pay. So I called my Dad for advice.
“Try cough syrup.” He said.
“Cough syrup?” I asked. “What kind? And how do I give it to him?” I was incredulous, and Mariah’s eyebrows arched as she heard me ask the question.
“Probably Nyquil, or anything that says Nightime or warns of drowsiness. That way you can be sure it will put him to sleep.” Dad sounded pretty confident, so I shrugged my shoulders.
“OK, we’ll give it a shot.” Mariah was not so optimistic.
“You can’t just give a cat cough syrup!” Her voice was slightly scornful. However, my newlywed sensibilities were just a bit offended at her scorn of my father’s advice.
“It’ll be just fine. We’ll test it out first, to see how it works. My Dad usually knows what he is talking about.” I said, daring her to disagree. She looked at me for a minute, and then shrugged her shoulders.
“OK, give it a shot. See what happens.” She said, walking away.
That settled it. I could not let her simply dismiss advice from my Dad that way. I went immediately to the medicine cabinet and dug through the bin of stuff until I found the night time cough syrup. I personally hated the stuff, it tasted like a cheap version of Jagermeister, and it never failed to keep me up most of the night with frustrating dreams that never fully allowed me to consciously understand them. Nevertheless, my manly pride was on the line here, and I had to at least conduct the test. I also found a measuring syringe with some kind of pink substance crusted inside it. Apparently whoever used it last was too lazy to wash it out afterwards. I seemed to have a hazy memory of finding some infant pain medicine in the middle of the night and guessed it was probably me.
I rinsed the syringe out, then filled it with the cough syrup. Then, I found the cat.
He already hated me, for reasons we had tried to guess but which generally eluded us. His hatred was generally expressed in the form of urine, which he particularly liked to place on any Army gear I left within reach. I had to be very careful to keep all of my gear up and off the floor, lest it acquire aq very distinctive odor which would take several thorough washings to get rid of.
As I approached him with the syringe hidden behind my back, he gave me his normal baleful glare and stalked away with his tail stiff in the air. I decided that a little bit of strategy was in order, and I went to the fridge and got a piece of baloney. I knelt on the floor and tried to be as inoffensive as possible. The cat approached gingerly, sniffing at the outstretched meat. I drew my hand in slowly, drawing him closer until I could reach the scruff of his neck. Then I sprang the trap.
I picked him up by his scruff, and brought the hand with the syringe out from behind my back. The cat was struggling to escape, making angry growling noises deep in his throat. I thrust the nozzle of the syringe between its slightly open mouth and quickly depressed the plunger all the way. The results were, to say the least, spectacular.