Day 2:
We spent the
weekend with my sister and her family in Viriginia and then were headed out for
day 2 in the car-this one was LONG-it was 8-9 hours down to Georgia. And leaving was particularly hard for
my little ones b/c they LOVE their cousins and were sad we weren’t going to see
them again for 6 months!
With renewed confidence, I got every sugary snack, bribe,
and sticker I could find, stacked it on the passenger seat and was sure, with
lessons learned from the previous driving day, I was much more prepared
now. I know, a sad delusion, but
when you’re facing that much time in the car with 2 little kids, reality
escapes you-it’s about whatever lie you must tell yourself to survive. They’re toddlers, if they sense
weakness, it’s all over-they will have you crying in a corner in 10
minutes. No, my kids aren’t
particularly naughty or wild, but if you have little kids, you know what I’m
talking about. They study us, find
our weaknesses, and then wait for the optimum moment to exploit said weakness
to reach their ultimate goal: GETTING THEIR WAY!
So, with visions of parenting and driving grandeur, we were
once again on our way. This time
we made it about 1 hour before our first dilemma. We were driving through the mountains and it started to
rain-no big deal, I’ve driven in rain plenty of times, but for some reason, my
normally cheerful 2 year old, Annie, decided that the rain was scary, awful,
and worth screaming about.
Normally I just
power through the useless cry. You
mommies know what I mean, you just tune it out. It’s a gift we have, but about 15 minutes into this “the
rain is going to kill me” scream of terror, she figure out I was ignoring
her. What’s a toddler to do?!
Well, this toddler started grabbing everything she could find and throwing it
at the back of my head.
Now, my husband
and I are NOT athletic people AT ALL.
In fact, it’s laughable how awesome we look when playing any
sport. BUT for some reason, little
Annie is amazingly accurate with her throwing of random objects. Perhaps we got an athletic one-a skill
I am more than willing to encourage, just not at the moment when I driving 70
mph in the rain, on the mountain roads.
Once again, 1 hour into the trip and I’ve admitted defeat. There is nowhere to pull over and we’re
in the middle of nowhere with no exits, so I the next thing I do is just plain
shameful. I start grabbing her
ammunition-the bags of cookies, tiny toddler shoes, stuffed animals, which are
now hitting me in the face and accumulating in my lap and begin throwing them
back at her. BUT like I said
before, I have no athletic acumen, which means I’m now just creating mass chaos
in the backseat with toys, food, and anything else I can find flying in every
direction. Not my proudest mommy
moment.
All of a sudden
both of the kids start laughing hysterically and start yelling, “This is so
fun, Mommy” “I LOVE this fun throwing game”….. So somehow in my moment of
shameful mommy behavior, my kids still managed to have fun. The rain stopped
and after about 3 minutes, they
got bored with the game and went back to simply watching their movie.
I’m not going to win any “Mommy of the year” awards for
that, but thankfully the next 7 hours went by great and we made it to Georgia
with my sanity relatively intact and my girls still thinking this is part of
some super fun vacation. That’s
the great thing about kids-if they want to have fun, they will. I could learn a
thing or two from them about a positive attitude and finding fun in the simple,
silly, random things in life!
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