Over the River and Through the Woods ...

For the record, I love road trips. I love adventuring to new places, seeing new scenery, exploring and feeling the freedom that comes with leaving the mundane behind for a couple of days.

This fall, however, I issued an edict that never before would I have considered: NO MORE ROAD TRIPS. Not forever, mind you, this is merely a temporary moratorium. But after seeing the better part of four states, thousands of miles, two sets of in-laws and my own family, I'm done. It wasn't so much those things that inspired the unprecedented proclamation, it was all of the above PLUS doing it in a compact-car stuffed to its gills with everything required for traveling with children (and the things Himself inherited from his father), PLUS a toddler and a 4- to 7-week-old infant. It was spending 18 days of a 22-day span on the road or at someone else's house, where even under the best of circumstances I don't sleep well, and when it involves a nursing newborn - well, sleep was the one thing I didn't get too much of.

Then there were the adventures. The trip to my parents' house with both girls by myself where the entire car was full of cases of apples (loose - the car was too full of kids and kid stuff to do anything other than dump the the boxes of apples in and let them roam around during the ride). There was the point at which our car refused to start at a rest stop in Oregon (the 3-year-old car that with just over 50k miles should NOT be refusing to start). It added an extra 90 minutes to our travels - ended up being a bad batter. Of course, it meant we missed a horrific dust storm in the wilds of Eastern Washington - so it ended up being one of those "hmmm..." moments. There was the funeral - the whole reason for the longest of the road trips. There was the sleeping in the same room as both kids for 8 of the longest nights of my lie, where they took turns waking each other (and us) up. There was the stopping every couple of hours to feed Pebbles and exercise Woodstock's legs. And there was an abundance of mediocre, calorie-laden food during the long days on the road.

Still, it took until the end of the 16.5-hour drive back from our last road trip before I cracked. Somewhere in the wilds of Idaho, I exclaimed, "We're not going ANYWHERE for a very long time. If anyone wants to see us, we have a guest bedroom (with a bed!) and an extra bathroom - they can come see US!"

Fortunately, Himself agreed. The very next day I issued an e-mail to all relatives explaining that we were not leaving the county for Thanksgiving this year. If anyone wanted to see us, they could come to us.

Anytime I think about having to spend more than 30 minutes in the car, I break out in hives. Every time we got in the car for a week after returning, Woodstock would ask which grandparent we were going to see. How quickly the cry of "My bum is tired!" fade from her memory. (Although, to be completely honest, Woodstock wins the "Toddler Traveler of a Lifetime" award - she was a FANTASTIC road-tripper. Not one tantrum in the car. Not one utterance of "are we there yet?" The only peep that let us know she was as tired of the whole deal as we were was the tired bum comment. Pebbles, on the other hand, loathes her car seat if she is awake. Fortunately 4- to 7-week-olds sleep a lot).

I cannot explain how blissfully happy I am to have banned all road trips in the immediate future. There is something to be said after all about order, familiarity and routine.

There's also something to be said about a good night's sleep, but we're not there quite yet.