Too Much Together is Too Much

After an odd three-year drought, apparently this summer is the summer to get married if you are in our family. There are all of the weddings happening all at once, which means we're going to spend a whole bunch of weekends driving all over the place.

First stop, Tennessee. (Congrats, Ashley and Justin!)

If you would like to do the math, we spent 20 out of 60 hours in the car between Friday and Sunday.

I repeat, we spent 20 hours in the car.

"We" includes the newly minted 2-year old.

You know what's not smart? Doing anything for 20 hours with a newly minted 2-year old. I mean, toddlers are basically jerks. It's their job to be jerks. They're supposed to eat, sleep, and question the world. The universe revolves around their needs and they second-guess every second of every day. Locking yourself in a small space with one of them is just asking for trouble.

So, yeah, this kid is a jerk.

Do not be fooled by those long eyelashes. Those eyelashes did not spend much time gently resting those little cheeks during the car rides. That would have made things too easy. Instead, Miss Mila spent her time awake and questioning and basically being a jerk.

Hour 1: In an attempt to wow the newly minted 2-year old with something new and different, we turned her to forward-facing just in time for the trip. In theory, I would have liked to wait another year, but in reality I kept smacking her head on the roof of the car when I would put her in because the rear-facing setup was a little tight. Instead of a guaranteed concussion, I gave her a good view.

She initially thanked me with a WOOOOW! and a grin, but that quickly turned into a kick. And another kick. And another one.

It turns out that when you first discover you can kick the seat in front of you, you have to do it for a whole hour. Over and over.

Hour 2: I hadn't considered it, but I guess I sneak eat a lot in the front seat, where little eyes can't see me. Except, a forward-facing kid can see me and HOOBOY WAS SHE PISSED THAT I SNEAK FOOD. I have to figure out if I would rather get my face ripped off by a toddler or share my candy in the future. It's a tough call.

Hour 3: COLOR, PLEASE. Manners are good. Toddlers with relatively open access to a pack of markers are not. "Washable" my ass. The kid had blue hands all weekend.

Hour 4: There was, of course, a DVD player and a stack of movies for Mila to watch. But which movie? Cars? Minions? Something else? She wasn't sure, so she demanded that she watch five seconds of each of the movies. But just five seconds, and then it was time to demand a change.

Hour 5: HOW DO SMALL HUMANS CREATE SUCH AWFUL-SMELLING THINGS?

Hour 6: Snack time! Hooray! Or not because of the 234593289713 snacks we packed, none of them were the correct one.

Cupcakes. Mila wanted cupcakes. There are no cupcakes in BFE Kentucky.

Hour 7: Kick. Kick. Kick.

Hour 8: Mila wanted ... something. I never did figure out what. It might have been easier if she would have been willing to use her words instead of just yelling "WANT." Words, kid. Words are good.

Hour 9: OMG WE ARE ALMOST THERE PLEASE STOP YELLING.

And then we had to return home a day and a half later, repeating the whole process.

During the return home, Mila repeated all of her Day One jerkiness, but she added a few layers of fun. For example, she decided she needed to hold hands with an adult, but only if the adult was seated in the front and would have to do an awkward Twister pose in order to get their hand back with her. My shoulder and knee still hurt from that delightful few hours.

And then there was the point in the festivities when Mila was very happily entertained by an app on my phone. Seriously, she was so happy playing Toca Band. SO HAPPY. Mostly she was happy because she found the most annoying way to play the game and no matter how many times I removed the little character that yelled NANANANAAAANAAAA in the most grating voice possible, Mila put her back. Over and over. It was the only character Mila insisted had to be in her band.

I have voted it the character most likely to die when I punch it in the face.

The good news? The good news is that we get to try it all again this weekend when we go to another wedding in another state.

YAY!

Comments

[Lindsey]

We'll be taking a newly minted 7 month old on a 12 hour drive to NC in August. I'm trying to decide if it's better or worse that she has no words yet :-/