Tour de Tempe

Since our annual zoo pass expires tomorrow, I decided on a whim to take the kids to the zoo today. Normally, I only do such a thing when I have another adult to go with me, but the last time we went, my kids did pretty well, so I figured I'd go it alone this time. It went quite well, actually. No one got lost, no one got really hurt. (B fell a few times trying to run in her flip flops, but nothing more than minor scrapes.) It was a little on the warm side, but that's to be expected for this time of year. We're nearing the end of the zoo season. Well, we can go in summer, but then we spend most of the time playing in the water jets or streams and don't bother looking at the animals.

All went so well that when Terence called from work to check on us, I happily reported that we were headed out to the car and that it had been a great visit. My only concern was getting the kids home as quickly as possible. Why? One, it was dinner time, and I really didn't want to grab fast food. Two, I knew that after all the water I had guzzled during our time at the zoo, I only had a short window before I would have to pee. And if there is anything more nuts than taking four kids to the zoo on your own, it is trying to find some random place where you can pull over, haul out all four kids, and use the bathroom. No sirree, I avoid that at all costs!

The normal drive home from the zoo takes a little over an hour or so, and I figured that I should be able to hold it that long if necessary. Of course, it was now smack in the middle of rush hour traffic, but at the risk of sounding like a California-bred snob, Phoenix simply doesn't have a REAL rush hour. Sure, the cars slow down and back up, but the bottleneck areas (especially out on our side of the valley) are relatively short, and rarely add more than an extra fifteen minutes onto the drive. There are two caveats to that-- sometimes there is massive road construction (like with whole sections of the freeway shut down), and accidents can make the freeway into a parking lot at any time.

Well, the latter was staring us in the face as I waited to get on the freeway after leaving the zoo. Multiple accidents, apparently, and a true rush hour gridlock was the result. With the holding-in-the-pee window in mind, I decided to detour through the town of Tempe and get onto another freeway farther south. Possibly it would add some extra time, I thought, but not much compared to the monster morass that awaited us on the 202. Little did I know . . . .

Apparently, caveat #1 was in force in Tempe today. The road I was on had been shut down from six lanes to two for some massive road project. (It looked like an archaeological excavation or something. It didn't look much like construction.) Bad enough, but once I figured out was what going on, I decided I'd just make a turn onto a side street and bypass the street (or make a U-turn). But no!! Tempe doesn't want you to escape! They had literally blocked off every street we could have turned onto. Every time we inched our way up to another road, I got my hopes up only to be dashed by yet another "Road Closed" sign barring my escape. Grrr! Eventually, we made it through to the other side of the town though. I guess it was a nice enough little diversion, since Tempe has actual trees. But I was starting to get short on time before the next necessary bathroom break.

Finally, we made it onto the freeway. To my great relief, this one only had normal Valley traffic, not bad at all. But then the brutal battle commenced. The kids were hungry, grumpy, and K was tired (but refusing to fall asleep). M and J and B took turns tormenting each other and complaining/crying/whining to me about it. "Mom, M says I'm sitting in a girl seat. I'm not, I'm not!" or "Mommy!!! J called me 'poopy diaper!'" Tempers were flaring, M & J were chucking things at each other in the back. K participated by screaming through it all.

I sat through nearly an hour of that, but at least I lived to tell the tale. And so did my kids, thank goodness. I'm rather proud of my self-control. I didn't throttle a single one. Best of all, I made it home without having to make a pit stop. Sometimes it's the little things that mean so much!