Our trip

So there are no pictures.

What there is, are facts.

• The first five hours by myself went fabulously! Left about 7:45am. I drove all the way to about 80 miles from Jacksonville where we stopped at a McDonalds. Put both kids in the stroller, went into a big bathroom, went to the bathroom myself, changed both of them, and then fed Elijah while Isaac played and ate some apples. We stayed about an hour. Then I went to the bathroom again, loaded them up and headed to the airport where we decided to go in and meet my Mom to get another break. The boys were fabulous! I was able to get both of them what they needed fairly easily.
• (At this point I was thinking, I could have done the whole ten hours by myself. That's funny! Not a chance by the way!)
• Picked up my Mom at 3:30, and we were off. I got to the airport about ten minutes before she did. Perfect timing! We stopped again at 5pm. Unfortunately, stops were pretty hard to come by so the McDonalds we found did not have a play place. Isaac, did, however, enjoy walking around and climbing off and on his seat again while my Mom fed Elijah and I took turns changing both boys. Actually I changed Isaac twice since he decided to leave me a present right after I changed him.
• All was going well until about 7pm. Two hours from home, we met stand-still traffic. Dead stand-still. I turned the car off, and we finally decided to let the boys out of their chairs. Well, I decided. My Mom said she didn't know if it was worth it. I should have heeded her advice. Unfortunately, the decision to return them to their seats went over horribly. There was complete revolt in the car. After being in their seats for over ten hours, they wanted nothing to do with returning. But return they did as we inched forward for about another half hour. It was a terrible accident. Looked like a one car rollover. I would be shocked if people survived. It was completely smashed. Kinda puts things in perspective.
• After that, the boys struggled for about thirty minutes to both fall asleep. Elijah would start to drift, Isaac would cry, and Elijah would wake up and cry which would ignite Isaac and around it would go again. But finally, with some smooth talking from my Mom, Isaac finally gave up, and the last ninety minutes were spent in good conversation with my Mom while both boys slept.
• My Mom was FANTASTIC! What a long day for her, but she handled it without a single complaint. Go Mom!

Talk about a "balanced" diet. Take a look at my stellar performance yesterday on the road:

• One bowl of cereal (before I left)
• 2-20 ounce Mountain Dews
• 1 bottle of water
• One entire (large) bag of peanut M & Ms
• 2 Smuckers uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• One half of a banana
• One fish fillet sandwhich (Hadn't had one of these in like, ten years. Now I remember why)
• A variety of half eaten snacks that Isaac handed back to me

Here are some tips that I either did or thought of on the way for travelling solo with children:

• Put the more "needy" child behind the passenger seat. It was much more important that I could get to Isaac easier as he was in need of nearly constant entertainment. I kept a big box of books, snacks, stuffed animals, and other toys on the passenger seat and just kept handing him things when a current item was dropped.
• Having long arms is very helpful. Actually mandatory. If you don't have long arms, try to change that if possible before your next trip. :)
• I usually did not feed Isaac when we stopped. I would let him play and then feed him when we were in the car again to help pass the time.
• If your child is a pacifier user but spits it out fairly regularly, a supply kept in a cup holder by you works well. I had three of them, and if Elijah spit one out and I couldn't immediately obtain it, I'd pull another one out, reach behind me and stick it back in his mouth. I also kept one tied to his seat that I could use if I ran out of cup holder pacifiers.
• Hide all books and toys that you are going to take on your trip for a few days before you leave. Then, when you get in the car, everything is brand new again!
• The M&Ms (peanut butter is my personal favorite) to help pass the time if you feel a bit sleepy or bored were a lifesaver! I'd put one in my mouth and let it completely dissolve before eating it. Well, most of the time. Sometimes I got excited and forgot and just started chowing down. Did you know that if you suck the color off an M&M, the next layer, before the chocolate, is clear? Way cool.
• Mirrors help considerably. Being able to see Elijah, who is still backward facing, was very helpful. (He had a mirror on the headrest of the seat his carseat was on.) Especially when you are trying to put in a pacifier behind your back. I think I'd like to get another mirror under my rearview mirror so I can see Isaac easier.
• One of those "snack trap cups" to put snacks in was very helpful for Isaac. I could load it up with something fun and pass it back to him. Of course his seat was piled high with snacks every time we stopped. But I would just scoop what he dropped up during our stop and load them in the cup again for a whole new round of fun!
• Music! This was great. My husband, who is awesome by the way, loaded my Ipod with tons of music in different categories. I had praise music for me. I had kids music for the kids. And I had a lullaby collection as well. He also put a few teaching tapes on there but I never got to those. The variety (especially the fast and slow selections) really helped.

Anyone else have any good tips? I'll add them to the bottom of this post for future trip-takers to use.

So that's that. The boys went to bed very late last night. We got up and Mom K. and Joan stopped by. Now it is about 2:00pm and both boys have drifted to sleep.

And now I hope to too!