Traveling Tales

We were in the car a long time yesterday.  For the first time, we decided to drive the whole day with the children in the car without taking advantage of the hours my children would be sleeping.   Driving during their sleep hours makes for a faster, and possibly more relaxing drive for the adults, but when we get there in the middle of the night, it takes a toll on us as parents.

We thought we'd give it a go this trip and on the whole,  the children did quite well.  It was a long ride at eleven hours, but that included several stops, one specifically when my daughter yelled out, "poopie, poopie!"  Even in the middle of Washington traffic, we took time to stop for that one.

My son was interested in our destination.   We were heading to the shore of New Jersey, was we have family.  To my three-year-old son, "New Jersey" itself was our ultimate goal.  He kept asking, "are we at New Jersey yet?"   When we finally crossed the state line, he was not as excited nor impressed as we had hoped he'd be.  He was particularly unimpressed when we told him we still had two more hours of travel to go.

When we stopped for dinner, we could hardly get the children to eat because they just needed to run and burn energy.  In the play area at the place we'd stopped, they ran around screaming and flailing their arms.   Frenetic is about the best word I can come up with to describe their energetic motions and noises.

As we got back on the road, my daughter looked out the window and said, "is it night night time?"  It was getting dark and we still weren't there.  I told her she could stay up late and spend time with her cousins, aunt and uncle when we arrived and she was happy at that.

Then the GPS navigation said, "continue following the road for nineteen miles."   My son suddenly said, "are we're gonna fall off the road?  Aw, man."  We explained that the word was 'following' not 'falling' and he was somewhat relieved.

Then, my son started asking daddy if we were lost.  I think we'd told him we were getting close so many times that his faith was shaken in our ability to get us to our destination.

We did eventually arrive, and everyone, not only my children, were excited we made it.   We all stayed up late, catching up.  We are so glad to be on vacation with family at their home in New Jersey.

The Big Boy Update:  My son and daughter were very intrigued with their cousin's pool table, but especially the pool balls.   My son, for some inexplicable reason, named the orange ball, "the awesome ball".  He tried to take the ball to his bed and didn't want to let it go for some time.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to have, "tony pails" in her hair today.   She had to settle for pony tails.