"Each trip's a trip to paradise, with my baby on board."
We’re back from visiting the grandparents. The parenting highlight of the trip was discovering that Abbie is outgrowing her stranger anxiety. No longer does she break down into hysteric tears when approached by grandparents or other unfamiliar people who may have intentions of forcing horrible things on her, like clipping her fingernails or teasing her with an open dishwasher only to slam it shut when she approaches. Now she simply looks uneasy when a grandparent looms near, like she’s ready to burst into tears at the first sight of fingernail clippers, but is willing to wait until such implements appear before doing so. This behavior is good for her self-preservation because crying at her grandparents will put her on their bad side, and if she wants any hope of being spoiled she’d better stay on her grandparents’ good side. Heaven knows she has no chance of her parents spoiling her.
The parenting lowlight of the trip was discovering that Abbie will no longer sleep in the car for much more than an hour. If she were a year younger, short naps would be no big deal; simply stop long enough to feed her, let her explore the outside world long enough to forget the confinement of her car seat, and drive (hopefully) the rest of the way home as she drifts back to sleep and we rock out to the sounds of “Now 16.” Now she’s on a one nap a day schedule, which means that when she wakes up one hour into a three-hour car ride, don’t bother stopping because that simply delays the arrival, and the sooner we arrive at the destination, the sooner we can stop listening to either her incessant complaining about being trapped in the car or, possibly worse yet, the incessantly repeating Sesame Street CD that’s the only thing preventing further complaining.
She woke up after about an hour nap on both the departure and return trip, but we took two different routes so she awoke under very different circumstances. When we left Des Moines to see my family, we took the shiny interstate for the entire rural portion of our travels. In an effort to minimize waking events, we kept as quiet as possible while she slept: No radio, no talking, just stone-cold silence as if one of us (probably Ellie) was really mad for something the other one did (probably me) when we were actually really frightened of the wrath we might incur should the little one awake. After an hour of napping, her eyes popped open with no unusual outside stimulus: No sudden stops, no loud noises, just the rolling nothingness that comprises I-80. We spent the rest of the trip (about 90 minutes, she fell asleep about 30 minutes down the road) shoving toys in her lap and singing along with Ernie while I could only wish to hear a college football game on the radio.
On the return trip, we left from the farm owned by Ellie’s family in rural Iowa, and therefore returned home via the finest two-lane highways northwest Iowa has to offer. This meant lots of outside stimulus as I decelerated into turns, stopped for stop signs, and cringed as we thundered over rumble strips that are ironically designed to wake up sleepy drivers as they approach stop signs. Abbie fell asleep fairly quickly, and I was very proud of my driving as I had kept the car in constant motion for the first hour of the trip despite the presence of multiple stop signs. Then Ellie decided she wanted an ice cream cone. I asked if she was crazy, she swore by her sanity and insisted the stop wouldn’t wake Abbie. I insisted it would, but decided to pull over; Ellie is incubating twins and deserves all of the ice cream she wants.
I rolled into the parking lot, and stopped next to the restaurant door after mulling the option of letting Ellie hop out of a moving vehicle. I told her to be quick and quiet, but before she could click the door I saw bright eyes peering around the back seat. I told her to hop back in and we’d just take the drive-thru.
I spent the next half-hour seething, burning the moment into my head when I was right and she was wrong. Sure she might have been about to wake up anyway, but I don’t want that fact to get in the way of my recollection. Years from now, when the twins are out of the house and Ellie and I have nothing to do but argue about minutia from past events, we’ll have an argument about what color the neighbor’s house used to be, and I’ll triumphantly state that I must be the one who’s right (it was yellow) and she must be wrong (it was off-white) because that one time I correctly predicted that Abbie would wake up if we stopped means I’m right more often than she is.
Then I had to come back to Earth because Abbie was whining and Ellie couldn’t reach any more toys. No time to burn spiteful memories, I spent the next two hours concentrating on grabbing toys and singing along with Ernie. Our future neighbor’s house will probably be brick anyway.
The parenting lowlight of the trip was discovering that Abbie will no longer sleep in the car for much more than an hour. If she were a year younger, short naps would be no big deal; simply stop long enough to feed her, let her explore the outside world long enough to forget the confinement of her car seat, and drive (hopefully) the rest of the way home as she drifts back to sleep and we rock out to the sounds of “Now 16.” Now she’s on a one nap a day schedule, which means that when she wakes up one hour into a three-hour car ride, don’t bother stopping because that simply delays the arrival, and the sooner we arrive at the destination, the sooner we can stop listening to either her incessant complaining about being trapped in the car or, possibly worse yet, the incessantly repeating Sesame Street CD that’s the only thing preventing further complaining.
She woke up after about an hour nap on both the departure and return trip, but we took two different routes so she awoke under very different circumstances. When we left Des Moines to see my family, we took the shiny interstate for the entire rural portion of our travels. In an effort to minimize waking events, we kept as quiet as possible while she slept: No radio, no talking, just stone-cold silence as if one of us (probably Ellie) was really mad for something the other one did (probably me) when we were actually really frightened of the wrath we might incur should the little one awake. After an hour of napping, her eyes popped open with no unusual outside stimulus: No sudden stops, no loud noises, just the rolling nothingness that comprises I-80. We spent the rest of the trip (about 90 minutes, she fell asleep about 30 minutes down the road) shoving toys in her lap and singing along with Ernie while I could only wish to hear a college football game on the radio.
On the return trip, we left from the farm owned by Ellie’s family in rural Iowa, and therefore returned home via the finest two-lane highways northwest Iowa has to offer. This meant lots of outside stimulus as I decelerated into turns, stopped for stop signs, and cringed as we thundered over rumble strips that are ironically designed to wake up sleepy drivers as they approach stop signs. Abbie fell asleep fairly quickly, and I was very proud of my driving as I had kept the car in constant motion for the first hour of the trip despite the presence of multiple stop signs. Then Ellie decided she wanted an ice cream cone. I asked if she was crazy, she swore by her sanity and insisted the stop wouldn’t wake Abbie. I insisted it would, but decided to pull over; Ellie is incubating twins and deserves all of the ice cream she wants.
I rolled into the parking lot, and stopped next to the restaurant door after mulling the option of letting Ellie hop out of a moving vehicle. I told her to be quick and quiet, but before she could click the door I saw bright eyes peering around the back seat. I told her to hop back in and we’d just take the drive-thru.
I spent the next half-hour seething, burning the moment into my head when I was right and she was wrong. Sure she might have been about to wake up anyway, but I don’t want that fact to get in the way of my recollection. Years from now, when the twins are out of the house and Ellie and I have nothing to do but argue about minutia from past events, we’ll have an argument about what color the neighbor’s house used to be, and I’ll triumphantly state that I must be the one who’s right (it was yellow) and she must be wrong (it was off-white) because that one time I correctly predicted that Abbie would wake up if we stopped means I’m right more often than she is.
Then I had to come back to Earth because Abbie was whining and Ellie couldn’t reach any more toys. No time to burn spiteful memories, I spent the next two hours concentrating on grabbing toys and singing along with Ernie. Our future neighbor’s house will probably be brick anyway.
posted by Matt at
9:56 PM
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