Timing

Around ten-thirty last night a doorknob rattled upstairs. Steve and I paused our wildly-inappropriate-for-children Netflix and waited for Patrick to emerge seeking water or an apple or a violin* or whatever. Nothing happened. So we started the movie again and then paused - rattle rattle rattle.

"Patrick?" I stage-whispered as if the sound of cinematic explosions do not travel upstairs but my lightest utterance would wake up the twins.

Nothing. We re-started the movie. Rattle. Rattle.

Steve and I looked at each other and in the same instant said, "Oh no."

I bolted upstairs and - sure as eggs is eggs - there was Caroline's empty crib, Caroline's dumped out dresser drawers, Caroline's cleared bookshelves and Caroline herself standing on an upturned wastepaper basket trying to open the window.

"Oh hello Mommy," she said brightly "welcome in!"

So the good news is that the Little Keeper Sleeper is the only garment Caroline is incapable of removing. The bad news is that liberating her from her nice little sleep sack finally enabled her to move her legs more than six inches apart and after two nights of careful consideration she realized she can vault over the bars. Or straddle them. Or hang from her knees. Or dangle head-first while gripping the top rail before rotating her hands to drop, all Spiderman, onto the floor. All of which I have had the opportunity to watch her do. 

It's not that we didn't expect her to leave the crib eventually; it's just that I wasn't prepared for her to do so at that exact second, six days before our big cross-country excursion. I'm not ready, damn it.

Oh oh oh! And! Meanwhile! Caroline is acting like she got hit on the head by a coconut. After three days of using the potty more or less without accident she woke up one day and yet again had no idea what I meant.

You want me to do... what? WHERE? You must be joking. And then off she wandered like a poorly fused highly volatile bomb. This is the same child that used the little potty bucket thing this week to scoop all of the water out of the big toilet; water she carefully carried to the laundry room where she poured it over a basketful of (once)clean clothes. My fault for believing her when she said she wanted privacy to pee on the big potty all by herself. Liar. Thank heavens for neatnik Edward who was no doubt a willing side-kick but who alerted me to the bathroom disaster by coming in to get washcloths out of the kitchen drawer before hurrying back to Caroline with a stack of them clutched in his chunky hands. Edward cannot abide a mesth.

Finally after weeks spent stripping she has started locating swim diapers (do you know how much a swim diaper costs per leg? a lot) and pulling them on, pair after pair. Yesterday she waddled by wearing four at once, together with her swim bottoms pulled across her arms like a backwards shrug.

If I had a List she would occupy the first six spaces.

She's cute but she's a lot of work.

My plan - by the way - is to keep her crib bound by any means necessary until after we return from Vermont. Then we'll really kid-proof her room and get her a big girl bed and blah blah etc.

+

Edward is what they used to call All Boy but would now be referred to as a Child Who Displays A Natural Affinity For Pursuits That Are Neither Inherently Masculine Nor Feminine Despite Societal Constructs To The Contrary.

Rock in one hand, baseball in the other and he's looking for bugs, most likely to squash them. 

+

Steve and Patrick have spent a few weekends working on a playhouse spaceship. It still needs to be tackled with all of the half-empty cans of paint in the garage and the interior could use some work (Shelves, I suggested. An electrical panel, Patrick countered) but it is mostly finished.

Caroline is smitten with it and gave an Amelia Earhart press conference to mark her inaugural flight:

Hanging Off The Wing

 

Getting A Troubling Weather Report

Describing The Perils She Faces

Smiling For The Folks Back Home

 

To Infinity Or Maybe Borneo

 

+

This has nothing to do with anything but I have been following the rumors of an impending Important Engagement with interest. Like most Americans of a romantic bent I have a fondness for the British royal family and it's very hard not to admire Kate Middleton. She's a miracle of respectability, she is lovely, she dresses like a dream, she is a grownup and they have been dating for years and years. It is all so suitable and even though I wouldn't wish that kind of global scrutiny on anyone I suppose she knows what she's doing. But as I contemplate another royal wedding I keep thinking about the last one and I am shocked by how much perspective can change in such a short period of time.

I mean, isn't it weird that everyone thought it was so nice that a 19 year old was going to marry this jaded 30-something she barely knew? Or that a junior high school kid in Washington DC (along with the rest of the world) would be made aware of the fact that the royal physicians had (huge sigh of relief) certified the future princess as virgo intacta?  Surely we are less... ridiculous than that now?

+

As I said we are getting ready to leave for our trip pretty soon and it is making me even more dithery than usual. I keep thinking of things to bring (battery charger. sun hats) and buy (ziploc bags. little red car III IV V) and get (almanac from library for Patrick. more recorded books - one of you asked why I could not bring both Percy and Artemis and I opened my mouth and closed it again; then I requested the beejums out of the two serieseseses via the library) and do (unload dishwasher before we leave. write notes for house sitter) while I am driving or in the shower and then I spend the rest of the day trying to remember what that ultra-important item was that flitted into my mind only to be promptly forgotten five seconds later. 

Steve remarked to the cat that hyper-controlling people should probably not be allowed to travel and I beat him to death with my 45 page list of Things To Etc. So that was sad.

Two questions for you:

1. Snacks for the car that are not sticky, crumbly, oozy or too completely entirely constructed of crap. So far I have come up with: cheese.

2. I had this idea that I thought was pretty clever last summer when Steve and Patrick went on a little road trip without me. I wrote a short list of things for Patrick to try to find while they drove; a personalized I Spy meets the License Plate game. I decided to do it again and then I thought oh hey maybe we can make it more global if you guys give suggestions as well. I promise (hand to my heart) to put the finished list up on my blog before we leave and then you can play too as you car trip or just commute this summer. My original list was pretty basic (Find a: yellow truck, cow, dog in a car...) so anything like that or even things that you might see where you are (windmill, condor, whale, ferry, ski gondola) that we have no chance of seeing this time would be fine too. OK? OK.   

Sorry this is scattered, I am writing with one hand and wringing the other as I try to remember what that THING was - that totally critical THING - for Edward for the road.

Comments

[Linda]

We bring Grapes. Cut up Vegetables like Carrots, Celery, Green Peppers, Cucumber. Crackers are for rest stops. As are ants on the log and sandwiches.

Good luck on your trip!

[Leah]

1. cheerios? (they go everywhere, but they're not crumbly per se) Carrots sounds like a good idea too.

2. Giant inflatable rat (seriously, it's an NYC thing); backhoe.

[Mika]

1. Fruit leathers are not TOO sticky...
2. Goldfish (or any other tiny cracker eaten in one bite, to avoid crumbles) in trap'em containers.
3. Apples -- can be peeled on the run if necessary and given whole (that's how my kids like them, anyway, they refuse to eat peel and spit it out in tiny pieces. I have learned to just go with the flow on that one).

[JenM]

Snack suggestions: Cheerios, pretzels, fruit leather. I'm sure your pretty readers will come up with plenty more. Have a great trip!

[Rayne of Terror]

I like dry Quaker Oat Square cereal in the car as it is not crumbly, bite sized, and can be easily picked up if spilled.

[Sharon]

I'm dying of curiosity here... what's the footnote on violin?

[Madeleine]

Actually, since you are headed for Vermont, ski gondola is entirely possible. Unless they take them all down for the season.

Dried apples are not sticky and not particularly crumbly. They were hard to find until our Costco (in Canada) started carrying boxes full of little packets. They call them Fruit Chips I think.

[Lise]

Patric might want a violin?

Foods for the car: Raisins, dried blueberries, small crackers (goldfish, oyster crackers, etc. - they leave fewer crumbs than crackers the kids bite into) chex mix, granola bars, cubed meats (bought in the lunchmeat section of the grocery store) and for "treats," sweetened dry cereal that you don't allow at home.

[Susan H.]

Snack ideas: dried fruit(not as sticky as fruit leather- my kids like dried mango and apricot), nuts(my kids love pistachios but are old enough to open them on their own and put the shells in appropriate places), yogurt they can drink(the kind you buy or put in your own container-only a little messy), edamame- in the pod or not, beef jerky(grosses me out but the kids like it and only get it on trips).

[bad penguin]

one of my friends got a sort of mesh tent thing that zippered over the crib to keep her son from diving out of it. It worked until she could get him a regular bed.

For I Spy, you might see a train from the car. Or a barn. I saw a tank on the highway the other day, which was a little odd.

I'm also very curious to know about the violin :)

[molly]

OH MY GOD HER HAIR.....

sorry, i couldn't keep that in. Caroline's hair is absolutely the shiniest thing ever. I LOVE her. Also all her scrapes. She is such and endearing, Anne-of-green-gables in the making. You should totally write a children's book about her.

[Bill Dueber]

Cheese -- other than easy-to-handle-and-never-will-melt String Cheese -- is Right Out. Those slices are a nightmare when they get stuck somewhere.

Avoid sticky. Fruit leather is ok, as long as you don't get hippie stuff with no preservatives.

And ignore thoughts about crumbs or pieces or whatnot. Get the worries out of your head and just plan on vacuuming at a place where they kids can put in the quarters. For my kids, at least, it'd be like a trip to Disney-Freakin'-World.

[Candy]

We make an annual trek to the Jersey shore every year, 3 hours of driving. Now that the kids are older, they sit in the back seat with earplugs and ipods, but in their younger days I totally remember playing the license plate game ad nauseum, and also some game about finding things on the road. They were totally entertaining and the kids loved them.

May I also suggest a little electronic handheld game called 20Q. You think of an item - the "thing" asks you 20 yes/no/I don't know questions and at the end this blasted little "thing" 9 times out of 10 will guess what you were thinking. It's eerily correct and vastly entertaining. We spent an entire week playing it one year, and it's perfect for car rides.

[Candy]

I just read your other comments and have to reply to Linda above. I'm in New Jersey and there is a giant inflatable rat 2 miles from my office.

[Channa]

I think we used to have a travel game that was like a Bingo card, with different items you had to spot out the window in different boxes on the card, and the goal was to be the first to get a whole row of boxes. Maybe too complicated to prepare, but could be fun.

[TeacherMommy]

1. I would have once suggested trail mix in cups, but then my small boylets thought that flinging nuts at each other would be an entertainment of sorts and so I would no longer recommend them unless you enjoy vacuuming your car floor repeatedly (I just almost wrote "sucking up nuts" and then started giggling like the gutter brain I am, so you're welcome for that.)

However, Welches makes lovely little packets of gummy fruit snacks that are 100% fruit and the perfect size for small people, and I highly recommend them. The small people tend to be too busy eating them to fling them about.

2. a covered bridge, horse and buggy, classic cars of various sorts, a truck with two trailers rather than one, buffalo, alpacas, a crumbling barn (rather than a new one), a pink elephant (no, really, we saw one on our recent road trip), a Confederate flag

How's that?

[Peggy]

The problem with cheese is that if any of it gets dropped or "hidden" out of sight, it's going to stink after a few days in a hot car. How about sesame sticks, carrots, or fruit snacks? Or you could just embrace the crumbs and go with crackers, pretzels, goldfish, etc - they're a lot easier to clean up than the sticky/oozy options.

Some I Spy ideas - a hawk, double tractor trailer, camper towing a car, car with a canoe (or kayak) on top, convertible with the top down, sailboat, a house with a red door, sign with an ice cream cone on it, empty billboard, billboard with an animal on it...My family drove 17 hours to Nova Scotia every summer when I was a kid - I'm an I Spy champ!

Hope that helps!

[Sally]

Trail mix. I like the nuts/raisins/M&Ms variety but there are zillions of combos you can get pre-mixed or make your own. When my kids were really little, I used to make one that they LOVED out of Cheerios, those strange melt-in-your-mouth stars (Puffs!), tiny dehydrated fruits and yogurt melts. They devoured this mix and it kept forever in the diaper bag. Also, get these: http://www.amazon.com/Munchkin-Snack-Catchers-Colors-Vary/dp/B000GB0NZK/ref=pd_sim_ba_3 to keep it (mostly) contained.

[Karen]

Since you plan on visiting Sudbury, you could include a Giant Nickel on your hunt. Our nickel has a beaver on it, so you could also include a giant beaver. If you are going through Toronto, you could include the CN Tower.

[Erika]

Violin?

[Jen R]

- small marshmallows
- Annie's Bunnies (cheddar to replace Goldfish, the others to replace Teddy Grahams) - they are pricier but also missing the standard food coloring, HFCS, and partially hydrogenated whatever.
- dried cherries, raisins, etc.
- small pretzels

for the hunt, since you'll go through Wisconsin, look for a Cheese Castle (or other cheese store - depends on which wat you drive) and a giant cow sculpture.

[Karen Conrardy]

I Spy: Odd shaped house (like those ones that look like igloos), cat in a car, Jack in the Box antennae ball, snow skis on top of a car, Carnival, Motortrycle (motorcycle with 3 wheels), tour bus (like one for a Rock Band), roadside stands, lightning bugs at night, lighthouse, person wearing a costume.

I wanna play too!
Have a wonderful trip, and please, tell us about the violin!
Karen

[yammeringon]

freeze dried fruit. Expensive, but a revelation. Also, carrots, celery, etc. Paired with cheese, you have a well-balanced meal.

[AR]

Tandem bicycle. Adult tricycle. Surfboard on top of car.

[bethany actually]

Things to find: Yacht, covered bridge, giant cross, canal, statue of a horse, tollbooth, suspension bridge.

[HereWeGoAJen]

My vote is to go to the baby section of the food store because there are a lot of snacks that are designed not to be too messy. I think crumbs might be inevitable though. I drove eight hours by myself with the baby and two dogs and during the last hour, I allowed the baby to dump out and play with an entire can of those puffs. I do not regret it, even though there are still a LOT of puffs in the car.

I Spy: a shoe by the side of the road (seriously, why are there so many of those?), a burned out light in a stoplight, someone driving and eating a taco.

[Kathy W.]

Mail Pouch barn
a llama (an alpaca will do)
a couch on a porch

[obabe]

when we travel - usually by plane, but we take a few 5 hour driving trips every year, each kid get a gallon ziploc of crap i have packed up. the rule is you can eat it whenever you want (m&ms for breakfast!) but when its gone, you arent getting more and there is no whining that someone else is eating m&ms for lunch and now youre all jealous and upset you had them for breakfast.

my favorites are: snack bags of sugar cereal we dont typically eat, m&m minis in those pop tubes, floridas natural fruit snacks, the 100 calorie version of almost anything- chips, snack mix, cookies. granola bars, string cheese, raisin boxes, dum dums and balance bars usaully round out the snack bags, and im the keeper of all main courses (pizza, yogurt, sandwiches) along with the 'babys' (hes 21 months!) snacks. i agree with the person who said check the baby aisle. target has a great version of the gerber puffs.

[Maria]

I like HereWeGoAJen's I Spy of the someone driving and ----. There are loads of possibilities with that. Also I Spy: a big red barn; a truck full of pigs; a horse trailer with two horses; a tire swing; a green tractor; a lighthouse; a military jet.

I pack separate very small bowls for my kids' snacks for sheer portion control and so that I don't have to turn around every 2 minutes to re-distribute or hear that I gave someone more than someone else. For long trips, I pull out some of the snacks other people mentioned, but also things the kids don't see as often, like yogurt pretzels and banana or apple chips. I also like to mix goldfish and honey cheerios together--it tastes better than one would think.
Poor you re: Caroline's crib-climbing. How scary to find her trying to open the window as you walked in on her.

[Cris]

1. Restoration Hardware had travel bingo boards - orange square ones. They were cool. You could also make a sheet, just for Patrick, of the 50 states so he could check off state license plates. You know, in your free time between now and when you leave. Look for different color water towers and then have Patrick email me with an explanation of how they work and why they are necessary. We live in water tower central and I still don't get them.

2. Its not healthy, but Twizzlers and Reese's Pieces work and don't leave much mess when you are absolutely desperate and the healthy stuff is gone / ceases to work. Camden (age 3) loves Slim Jims and they come in small sizes, too. Don't ask me how he got ahold of the first one; I don't think I'd ever have given him one voluntarily. I third the Puffs.

3. I love love love your descriptions of the twins. "Edward cannot abide a mesth."

4. You didn't get Steve's blood on the master to do list, did you? The lists and the list of the lists are all important in maintaining sanity!

5. Good luck!

[Shanna]

One thing to help with after travel clean up that is great, put towels down on the seats under the carseats. Long trips with my son I would even put down two so if his cup fell and happened to leak there was more layers to soak up a mess. Plus then anything that may be a sticky treat, and cheese gets really sticky if left on a car seat in the sun, gets dropped it is on a towel that if need be can be tossed versus having to reupholster the car. ;) good luck. If you drive through SE WI honk!

[NGS]

Postal truck
School bus
Roller coaster
Cow
Horse
Sheep
Goat
Tractor in the field
Covered bridge
Statues of large animals (if you go through MN and WI - think mouse, moose, bear, etc) - the orange moose on 94 is noteworthy, I think
Smelting factories (oh, Gary, Indiana)
Car factories (hi! this is where Neons are made!)
Military caravan
Hot air balloon

I could go on for days. I've apparently made the trip from Michigan to Minnesota one too many times.

[christine]

I vote for baby carrots and dried fruit. Useless on all other fronts.

[Emily Faulkner]

Have you heard of the Snack and Play Travel Tray?
http://www.leapsandbounds.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=534362&parentCategoryId=85193&categoryId=85251&subCategoryId=86243

We used this on a recent 13 hour drive and it was great for crayons and paper, snacks, books, etc.

Snacks: pretzels, cereal bars, fruit snacks, annie's cheddar bunnies, etc. there's no avoiding messes with snacks - just plan to detail your car when you get back.

[Liz]

I might have to stop reading your blog at work...folks are wondering about my laughter today. I snorted trying not to laugh. But then again, hearing what your three have gotten into keeps me going (and keeps my worried - my 2 are just a few months younger than your 2nd and 3rd).

ISpy
mattress on roof of car (bonus points if you think it's going to fly away at any moment)

farm animal shaped mailboxes

license plate from all the states

seat belt hanging out a door

[Shawna]

Our go-to car snacks include dry cereals like Quaker Corn Bran and plain Cheerios, goldfish or other crackers, and dried fruit in some form such as raisins and torn up pieces of dried mango (a container of mixed items such as these lives in our diaper bag). We usually grab sippy cups/bottles of milk before we leave the house, but if pressed for time we just take an empty sippy cup we can add water or another beverage to at a stop (kids rarely finish their entire drink and some don't come in re-sealable containers).

For longer trips we stock up on packets of mini-granola bars, dried fruit "chips", dried veggie chips (we like Sweets and Beets) and, if we're feeling like letting the kids eat foods they rarely get at home, the odd bag of corn chips or some such thing.

We don't worry about crumbly since it's easy to pick that stuff up with a vaccuum. Sticky is much worse. Even so, we allow the odd fruit bar. This company http://www.sunrype.com/viewgroup.php?id=2 makes good snacks that hide veggies in the products.

Our kids are much for raw carrots (choking hazard! Gagging hazard too!) but do like apple slices and they aren't too messy.

There's a Big Apple along the 401 near Belleville if that's on your route and you want to add it to your list.

[Sara]

ISpy Northeast Style

Deer
Moose
Turkey
Ben & Jerrys truck
Ski rack

[Christiana]

Car carrying another vehicle (4-wheeler, boat, bicycles, camper), Palm tree (good luck finding one up there, but here in FL...) purple wildflowers on the side of the road (or pick another color), hats in the back window of a car, Mickey Mouse icons on a car

Snacks: I echo the goldfish thing, raisins (yogurt covered or otherwise), dried fruit (of other sorts), those toddler/baby snacks that Gerber makes in the yogurt-melt varieties or the puffed rice type. The new large-sized rice krispies that are more like individual bites...

[Pronoia]

Pretzels. Definitely pretzels. Yes, there will be crumbs, but less than with other foods, and they last forever.

[Jan]

Reminder: sitting down for hours + cheese = constipation. Chopped dried dates (prepackaged), raisins, if you are taking a cooler, grapes, little carrots.

You might see a windfarm.
Amish buggies.
A "quilted" truck (the silver refrigerator ones).
Locomotive.
Antique classic car.
stretch limo.
car with blackened windows.
elves on motorcycles.
have fun!
Metal antenna tower made to look like a stylized pine tree.
Buzzards.
Corvette.
Hummer.
Porsche with a whale tail.
Horse van.
Volkswagen classic Bug with flower stickers.
Basic cloud formations (cirrus, cumulous, stratus, jet vapors...).
Helicopter.
Ferris wheel.

[amie]

snacks - CLIF bars? I give my 2yr old little pieces of them. Only terribly messy if he falls asleep with some in his mouth.

[Julie]

Rock quarry, giant fish statue, whale, hay baler, Bob's Big Boy, Sinclair station dinosaur, Sugar Shack (maple syrup stand), Totem Pole, lighthouse, hot air balloon, smiley face water-tower, cow statue, Model t, roadside vegetable stand, rainbow, Champ (lake monster living in Lake Champlain).

[Kathryn T]

I Spy suggestions:

The Drinkamugamilkameal terrifying cow truck
An RV towing a car
A hot air balloon
Something on fire (THAT IS NOT INSIDE THE CAR)
A pink truck
A field full of flowers
A circus tent
A motorcycle convoy
A van with a picture airbrushed on the side

[Gigi]

Here's the thing, since the triplets were 7 months old (they're 3yo now) we have taken a 6 hour(a day for 2 days) road trip to visit my inlaws (we just returned last week from the last one). I found out that there is absolutely nothing a toddler can't smear, grind, throw at a sibling or crumble. To somewhat preserve the seats what I do is remove the car seats, put an old sheet to cover the entire backseat and put the car seats back. Every time you stop just take out and shake the floor mats and when you return just remove and wash the sheet(carefully, it will be full of things you don't remember giving to the kids) Oh yeah, and vacum the car!
I take a portable DVD player (where they watch Yo Gabba Gabba, nothing more, o matter the selection available), travel aqua doodles (LOVE them) and a toy of they're choosing (this year Woody, Jesse and Buzz)
Good Luck!

[Jamie]

I highly recommend the mesh crib tent for limiting night-time exploring. My younger son was 18 months when he started climbing out & destroying everything in his room. My favorite part was finding his clothes stuffed down the diaper pail.

The only downside is that it's a huge pain to get set up & when we don't have a better solution for when we travel or the kids stay at Grandma's.

[Sarah]

Are those your chairs in the background on top of the table?! :)

To look for: a skywriter, a car carrier, a motorcycle with sidecar

To eat: granola bars, Wheat Thins (they don't crumble like Ritz), green bananas and butter mints in lieu of chocolate (smell better coming back up AND simply freshen the car if they get lost)

[craftyashley]

Raisins? My kids love a good trail mix. Or pretzels.
Also- for the crib climbing, try a Crib Tent- they are hard enough for parents to get on- so toddlers have no chance at getting out. Also- they make them for pack and plays- for your vacay.

[Anjali]

Late July is a brand that makes the yummiest organic mini peanut butter crackers. They also come in snack packs for trips. What's great is that they're also quite filling, in case you don't want to stop for lunch.

We have done a tone of long distance driving with our three. We bring a cooler and keep it stocked with cheese sticks, yogurt tubes, grapes, carrots, and apples. The yogurt tubes can get messy with our 2-year old, but most of the time she manages it fine.

[maria]

my newest travel favorite: beef jerky. the tall, slim jim kind. keeps littles occupied for hours! :)

[lizardek]

Things to look for:
something out of place
a man wearing a cowboy hat
something that's not the color it used to be
somthing that makes you laugh
someone you know
someone smiling at you
a street named after a tree (etc.)
something triangular
a birdhouse or a bird feeder
4 (or more) of the same thing in a row