The part of our vacation I dreaded the most was the car drive out and back. It's a haul to the middle of Michigan, down to the middle of Indiana, and then back to the far, far reaches of Pennsylvania.
Adding to the dread of the long car trip was a completely crazy morning in which our house was well over 90 degrees at 8 a.m. and we were all excited/exhausted/frantic with last-minute trip preparations and general child mischief.
Kevin offered to drop us off at the coffee shop so that we could enjoy some climate control and I could prepare myself for the trip ahead, and while it sounded like a great idea at the time, about ten minutes after arriving I realized we'd made a huge mistake.
So, yes, a crazy morning. From it, however, came a pretty decent car trip. I'm always forever and ever thankful that the kids do well in the car. It takes serious effort from Kevin and me, but we can reliably travel at 50 MPH* over our 600+ miles.
On this trip I packed small bags with different prizes for Peter and Lucy to open every hour. It occasionally worked well and sometimes failed. Mostly, it helped me to ration our stash of fun car diversions and gave me a break every hour or so as they happily engaged in whatever dollar store junk was under their wrapping paper.
We also surprised the kids with some new toys, which mysteriously showed up on their carseats after a stop on I-80.** New toys are pretty rare and thus were received with much excitement, although Lucy was about seven hundred times more excited about the PINK BABY WITH A PINK PACIFIER AND A BIB AND A PURPLE MILKY BOTTLE!!!!!! than Peter was with his magnet maze, but can I tell you that it's slim pickings for little boys and car-friendly toys? Peter probably would have loved A SUPER AWESOME TRAIN WITH LOTS OF TRAINS AND EVEN MORE TRAINS THAT GO WITH THOSE OTHER TRAINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but it wouldn't have been of much help in the car. Sorry, buddy.
As for the baby, he enjoyed endless exposure to those annoying plastic noisy toys that we keep in the box in a closet for just these sorts of occasions. Mostly, though, he loved that I was in the back with him. He woke from his nap to find me right there and his face burst into a huge, unbelieving smile. It was a top mama moment for sure.
Other car entertainments: books on CD, although not as appealing as I'd hoped they would be. I had some pretty delusional dreams of putting on Charlotte's Web and just riding the hours away. Snacks, including a dozen hard boiled eggs that properly grossed Kevin out as we consumed almost all on the drive.Their little "laptops," which I'd programed the night before to say their names and read personalized emails.
I was happy to see that Peter and Lucy could keep themselves entertained for long stretches at a time. Yes, there were extended riffs on all aspects of poop and naughty people, but there were also some very quiet moments in which they were hard at work on whatever project came from the prize bag.
(And there was some insanity.)
Unfortunately for Thomas, the drive was about 5 hours too long. When we got back into the car after an early dinner, he realized "holy cow, we're still DOING THIS?" and began an hour-long freakout.
Luckily for Thomas, we arrived at our hotel shortly after. And doubly lucky for Thomas, he didn't get HepA from the hotel, either.
*This is a number I pulled from thin air.
** With the heat index, it was about 120 this day. We tried to keep the kids inside a teeny-tiny rest stop, but they needed to stretch their legs and run off some energy, so we made them run to a tree and back a few times. If we'd done it one more time, Lucy may have developed heat stroke. It was hot!
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