Hell is a roadtrip with a toddler

Years were taken off of my life yesterday, years. We went to OKC to do the walk through with the inspectors at the house my parents just bought. I originally planned to send Michael alone. Then yesterday morning I had the worst idea of my life, why not go with? We could spend the day together as a family, Lauren could run around the empty house, maybe we could even go eat at a "real"restaurant. BAD IDEA. The two hour drive down went well enough, Lauren didn't sleep a wink but was relatively well behaved. We arrived at the house and I'm guessing that Lauren must have found and snorted some crack somewhere in this empty brand new house because from the moment her little pedipeds touched the ground she was going full speed. Lauren has learned to shriek when things aren't going her way so in an effort to keep my eardrums from bleeding I chased her in, out, and around the house... FOR 3 AND A HALF HOURS. The last half hour she just screamed. She was absolutely exhausted but somehow managed to keep herself awake (screaming) and brought me to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Finally it was over and we got back in the car and drove 30 minutes to the real estate office. Lauren slept peacefully for twenty whole minutes. I looked at her laying there so sweetly and couldn't believe how close to insanity I had been only twenty minutes earlier. We found a "real" restaurant and were able to sit and enjoy ourselves for about 5 minutes. I got indigestion from inhaling my food so we could get our adorable daughter, who appeared to be auditioning for "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" out of this nice restaurant. Lauren was not thrilled about riding in the car and was kind enough to be extremely vocal about her feelings the entire hour and a half back to Enid. Near the end of the trip Michael looked at Lauren and said with all seriousness "Lauren, when you get older and you ask me why you don't have a little brother or a little sister I'm going to be honest and tell you that it is because of you." When I finally stopped laughing I offered to make "the appointment" for him. I think after one more road trip he might make it himself.