By that I mean the world of traveling with a two year old. A couple of weeks ago I brought my niece home for a visit which means a five+ hour drive with an almost three year old. That's not an easy adventure!
Before we'd gone ten miles down the road we'd sung 'The Wheels on the Bus' half a dozen times, gone through the ABC's a few times and sung some other songs. When I told her it was time to listen to music on the radio instead of singing she was not happy about that decision!
The next thing of note was when I called my parents to tell them I learned why parents drive minivans. So they can put the kiddos in the far back seat and pretend they didn't hear them. You can't do that in a car... 😏 That might not be completely fair but I'm telling you, if you've ever traveled with kids there's been times you wish you couldn't hear them!
Another call to my parents was placed to complain about the word why. Only people that have spent a lot of time with young children can truly understand how much you can hate the word 'why'. Seriously. Oh my goodness. Why? I'll tell you why. To drive me crazy when you constantly ask the question why! That's why child!
At one point we stopped at McDonald's for dinner. It was crazy to me that we had to actually stop, I never stop for more then a few minutes when I'm on a long drive! However there was no way that I was giving food to a two year old in the car you guys. I'm not cleaning up that mess!
When I was a kid there was the old joke. To sum it up God invented fruits and Satan invented McDonald's. God invented the salad and Satan invented 'would you like fries with that?' And so on and so forth. But during this trip I concluded that God invented fries so when you get back on the road and the endless 'why' questions start again you can say 'here, eat your fries' and amazingly the 'why' questions are brought to a halt! At least until the fries are gone.
Then it becomes time for the toy. And for some unknown reason to parents everywhere McDonald's thought it would be a good idea on this particular day not to give out a regular toy but to give pieces of card stock paper, a colored pencil and stickers. Great. Except I spent the next three days pulling stickers off her blanket, the paper went everywhere and she lost the pencil almost immediately. Then came the inevitable question.
'Auntie Kitty, could you write on my card?'
'No honey, I can't, I'm driving.'
'Why can't you write on it?'
'Because I'm driving.'
'Why?'
Finally I just said that it was against the law to write on things while I was driving because it was dangerous and then I found something else to distract her with. Thank goodness.
I remember when I was a kid one of my favorite parts of road trips was driving through cities at night. It was always so beautiful to see the city lights at night. As we came into the city I told my niece, 'Look out the window'. Hearing her gasp of delight over something that still amazes me definitely brought a smile to my face and made up for so much frustration of endless why questions.
Of course no road trip is without speed bumps and one of mine was when we stopped at a gas station that I know has a nice little store. My plan was to grab a cup of coffee, and have my niece change into her pajamas so she could have bed time in the car. Instead the gas station's septic system had malfunctioned, their bathrooms were closed and we had to make the trek to the fast food place next door. It was close enough to walk but the poor kid was so tired she didn't want to walk, she wanted to be carried. That made that trip a little more exhausting for the already exhausted kiddo and this auntie!
However we made it back to the car and once I had her in her seat I gave her the bottle I'd been saving. Nine minutes later and peaceful silence ensued as she fell asleep.
So there it is. A few of the adventure of Traveling Blues with a Two from a very weary auntie.
I hope it made you laugh as much as it had my parents laughing at me with all my phone calls!
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