Warm up for the big trip

Over the weekend we took a five-hour road trip to Maryland, our first such excursion with two kids. It went better than expected, especially since it rained both ways and Fiona is still nursing like there's no tomorrow (more on this later). It was a warm up for our much-needed vacation to Daytona Beach in about a month. Both kids did great. On Friday, I kept Danny up all afternoon and he slept for some of the trip and looked out the window or played with his cars the rest of the time. He even sat in an adult chair (no high chair!!) at the restaurant for almost the whole time. Fiona cried a bit before and after she was fed but slept most of the time also. Surprisingly, she and Danny also held fairly close to their normal sleep schedules even though they were up late both nights we were there.

I'm relieved that the trip went well. It gives me some hope that the trip to Florida won't turn us completely gray. We've talked about flying to take the hassle out of the trip, but have decided that flying could bring hassles beyond our control. For traveling with small children, I'd rather have hassles that we can resolve on our own. In other words, there's no chance that we'll be trapped in our own vehicle for hours without food or water. If we fly, that's a very real possibility.

The kids

Fiona is two weeks shy of four months old. I've been toying with the idea of introducing her to some rice cereal now just because she seems so ravenous. Some doctors have gone back to recommending waiting until six months instead of four months to start solids. That is not going to happen with Fiona. Besides, as Jim points out, she was born two weeks "older", so she's technically four months, right? She goes up to eight hours overnight, then eats around 4:30, 8:30 and 11:30. But from about noon to bedtime, she seems to eat every two hours, sometimes less. I can't keep up, I can't pump (which means I have a rather short leash) and I can't seem to satisfy her any other way. Well, I can satisfy her, it just requires me to hold her in my arms, not a sling, ALL DAY LONG. Clearly not a viable option ... although this evening, she did hang out in the sling for about a half hour, so completely still and silent that I kept asking my husband if she was asleep. She was awake, head pressed against my chest, listening to my heartbeat.

She's quite a handful, that girl. Right now, she's like a six month old in a three month old's body. When I put her down on her back, she refuses to put her head down right away. She lifts her head and her feet and just stares at me, wide-eyed. No wonder she likes her car seat so much. It gives her the sense that her head is up.

As for Danny, his current obsession is cars. Jim looted the garage at his mom's house this weekend and found a race track and a monster truck. Danny played for hours today with the box that the race track came in ... using it as a ramp, putting the cars into the box, carrying the box around, dumping the cars from the box. Good thing we don't usually pay for his toys. And he's been helping me in the garden. Today I turned around when I heard him muttering "Mulch" only to find him placing mulch around the potato plants. He had just placed it in a circle around the potato hill and was patting it down like he'd seem me do with other plants. I was so proud of him!

Most kids will eat an apple only if it's cut up and peeled. My son eats apples, core and all. Bizarre. I'm trying to wean him off of fruit, his other obsession. Sounds weird, I know, but this child will eat fruit all day long if we let him. Then we end up with the dreaded fruit poop, which, sadly, bears no resemblance to Fruit Loops. I've actually given him a cookie as a diversion to grapes. It's that bad.

Anyhow, this post is more scattered than my normal offering, so for that, I apologize. Not everything that goes on here fits into neat little 500 word posts with a theme!