I went grocery shopping with the kids the other afternoon. As we walked down the freezer isle I pointed to the cases filled with frozen vegetables of every stripe. Loren’s snack of choice for the longest time has been either frozen peas in milk (which he calls “ice cream”) or frozen peas in applesauce. He’ll request it above just about anything else. We don’t thaw or heat the peas – just leave them frozen solid and dish it over to him.
As he gazed at the frozen wonders I said, “It’s like heaven, isn’t it buddy?” To which he responded, “yeah, just like Kevin…what’s Kevin?”
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We took another drive up to Vermont over the long weekend, because apparently we can just up and do that sort of thing with two small children. Once again it took about 12 hours door-to-door, nine of which we spend actually driving, the other three hours we use for pit-stops and food breaks. I would have never believed it, but the kids were even better about the drive this time around than our trip this past spring.
We hit the road the road at five in the morning, woke the kids, changed diapers, then buckled them in for the long haul. It took them both about an hour before they fell back asleep in the car. They woke up again around 8:30 and we decided to make our first stop of the day around 9:30 in Reading, PA (mostly so the grown ups could make room for still more coffee – the kids stayed in the car). Not a bad first leg of the trip.
Like last time, the goal was to get in as much driving with the kids still on their morning sleep schedule, without having to leave so early that Natalie and I were zombies all day. Five AM seems about the right balance.
We had one more quick stop before a late lunch, where we let everyone get out and run around for about an hour. From there we were back in the car for the final leg of the trip, which matched up perfectly with the kids’ regular afternoon nap. They finally woke again with only about an hour an a half of driving left until our destination. All told, they were awake in the car for about four or five of the nine hour drive. It’s still a long time for kids to be conscious in the car, but it’s surprisingly doable.
We arrived at our destination at 5pm on the dot, just in time for our hosts’ Second Annual Harvest Party, replete with live music, more Heady Topper than one home is probably allowed to have, and (perhaps more clutch than anything I’ve ever seen), a babysitter for the eight or so children running around.
It was almost Kevin.
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