WARNING: The following may make you sick, throw up.

I've been on vacation!

That's not something I have been able to say often in my married life, mostly because we have always talked ourselves out of spending the money on something frivolous while there were serious things to spend it on; also, the thought of driving hours and hours in the car with small children frightened us too much.

This year, however, we spent the money and weathered the drive. It wasn't a long drive -- just four or so hours -- but it was the longest we've ever gone with six kids in one van. Before we started we stocked up at Costco: red vines licorice, fruit snacks, and M&Ms. Sugar, sugar and sugar. Take note of that because it will come up later. Literally.

I drove because Husband had just found out that his pulled wisdom tooth had developed into dry socket. He, therefore, was not having much fun and was on heavy painkillers, which are not conducive to operating heavy machinery. Being chronically sleep deprived (mostly because I don't go to bed when I should), I took a little mental break for a while between Malad, Idaho, and Pocatello, but through the process of slapping my face and pinching my cheeks, I avoided killing us all. Husband woke up and put in his new Carpenters CD and that woke me up. I know that it should really have put me to sleep for real, but being able to sing along helped immensely.

A side note about the music: I grew up listening to classical music because that's what my parents listened to and played. I missed out on all the disco and smooth groove music of the '70s that Husband grew up listening to. For him, The Carpenters is nostalgic and sentimental and evokes happy childhood memories. For me, it was mostly new stuff, although I did recognize and know some of the songs. Who doesn't recognize and know at least some of their music, I'd like to know?

Meanwhile, in the back seats, our children watched DVDs and ate the aforementioned sugar. Little Gary ate a great deal of the sugary snacks, more than I knew, happily fed by his sisters.

When we had arrived at my brother's house, we settled in and I changed Little Gary's diaper. "Sick. Throw up," he said, matter-of-factly, but since he didn't look ill or exhibit greenness around the gills after making that statement, I just thought he'd get over it as he cooled down. A couple hours later we were getting dinner on the table and I picked him up. With no warning whatsoever he was sick and threw up. Twice. With volume and emphasis. I then realized how much licorice he'd consumed. Little Gary got a bath and I got a shower before dinner.

My brother was worried we'd brought some dire illness into the house, I could tell. I think I had just mentioned that our neighbor and Relief Society president was still recovering from Swine Flu and subsequent pneumonia when Gary heaved all over the kitchen and the white(!) living room rug. Fortunately, once he'd relieved himself of extra baggage, Gary was fine. No one else exhibited flu-like symptoms and the vacation passed peacefully. (And the rug cleaned up just fine.)

Husband, however, is still suffering from dry socket, although he is now able to cut out the heavy narcotic pain-killers and rely on ibuprofen alone. If you don't know exactly what dry socket is (which I didn't), imagine a scab forming in a dome over the hole in the gum, rather than directly on the wound, as it should. Under the scab an air pocket is formed, and the air presses down on the gum wound and causes amazingly great pain. You can either have the dentist scrape it out and let it bleed again or you can take painkillers and wait for it to heal on its own. Husband opted for taking pain-killers, probably not realizing just how long it would take to heal.

By the way, I bought some Mountain Dew for the drive home and had no mental lapses, despite a very long detour to drop Sian and Gabrielle off at camp. In fact, I'm still wired.