Road trips are a mental exercise in forethought and precise planning. The art of anticipating every plausible scenario so one may pack the tools to survive any event...such as carrying a passenger who needs to go #2 when you've just reached the south end of desolation and are headed towards the middle of nowhere. Travel Potty. Check. Appropriate entertainment for the span of 3 hours has also become a fine science of multimedia presentations while driving the car, distributing snacks, disc jockeying the CD, iPod, books, nursery rhyme songs, and books on tape. May I take your drink order? Peanuts?
This trip, I used the oasis of fast food desserts as our halfway point. Shelby, if you can make it there without trying to shred your carseat with your teeth and break glass with your voice, there will be a gigantic icecream sundae waiting for you at the next stop.
She made it there with surprisingly mature patience and a decent attitude. Phew. We sat down to enjoy our reward (hers, as much as mine....ya know, the planning? the preparation?) and she enlightened me with her three year old thoughts on a hot fudge sundae.
Her dimpled fingers gripped the spoon like a shovel as she scraped the fudge from the sides of the plastic cup. Her mouth was open before the spoon had begun its travel. Her little cherub lips were circled in a thin ring of chocolate like a sweet bulls eye. She closed her mouth around the spoon leaving a drip of melted icecream in the corner of her grin.
"Mmmm," she finally mused. When the last scoopable bite had disappeared, she silently handed me her spoon. Gripping the sides of the empty cup with both hands, she tossed back her head, tipped up the cup and slurped down every last drip of fudgey cream.
Licking her lips, she turned to me and said, "Mommy, this fuzz is good!"
This trip, I used the oasis of fast food desserts as our halfway point. Shelby, if you can make it there without trying to shred your carseat with your teeth and break glass with your voice, there will be a gigantic icecream sundae waiting for you at the next stop.
She made it there with surprisingly mature patience and a decent attitude. Phew. We sat down to enjoy our reward (hers, as much as mine....ya know, the planning? the preparation?) and she enlightened me with her three year old thoughts on a hot fudge sundae.
Her dimpled fingers gripped the spoon like a shovel as she scraped the fudge from the sides of the plastic cup. Her mouth was open before the spoon had begun its travel. Her little cherub lips were circled in a thin ring of chocolate like a sweet bulls eye. She closed her mouth around the spoon leaving a drip of melted icecream in the corner of her grin.
"Mmmm," she finally mused. When the last scoopable bite had disappeared, she silently handed me her spoon. Gripping the sides of the empty cup with both hands, she tossed back her head, tipped up the cup and slurped down every last drip of fudgey cream.
Licking her lips, she turned to me and said, "Mommy, this fuzz is good!"
Comments