{and yes, Logan occasionally sleeps with his eyes open}
We decided early into 2012 that we were going to take the kids up to QLD. Logan loves it up there as he has a realm of fun things to see and do, I have family that live there that hadn't met Ryder (I was 8-weeks pregnant with him on our last visit)... and it was just a way to escape from Adelaide in the only real opportunity that we have in the year when Cameron's work closes down over Christmas.
I can't remember how it came about, it must have been either after a few wines, or in a total 'brain fart' moment, but we decided to drive there. From Adelaide.
Being the pretty relaxed (most of the time) couple that we are, we brushed it off as an adventure, and locked it in with the family we were visiting. 'We'll be fine' I remember us saying... at least until the weeks leading up to our 'adventure' when the reality hit that our VERY mobile 16-month old doesn't like sitting in his high chair/pram/rocker for any longer than 5mins. We were in trouble.
Can you imagine driving 12-hours a day with a screaming hyena in the back seat?
I could and it wasn't pretty. I joked to my friends of ear plugs, loud music, even alcohol... none of which I would have used (at least not on the kids), but I was living these thoughts in my head over and over and becoming increasingly anxious about this hell-ish drive consuming that much of our time together, that we'd arrive in QLD with just enough time to turn around and come home again. (Or better yet, turning around and not even making it to QLD)
I armed myself with as much information as I could. And I went shopping - Bought the kids portable DVD players, bought Logan a new 3DS for Christmas, bought a HEAP of yummy 'in the car' snacks, and scheduled our drive over 3-days each way. That left us with an 11-day trip; 5 of those days were in QLD enjoying the Theme Parks, sunshine, family and shopping. The other 6-days were driving.
We left Adelaide at 4am on Boxing Day morning. 4am.
Yes, there's a 4am... and me at 4am isn't pretty. Especially 4am following the biggest day of the year.
We loaded up the car the night before so all we needed to do was get dressed and grab the kids (whilst still asleep) and load them into the car. We planned to hit Mildura by 9:30am, but had a back-up plan to stop at Renmark should things go bad.
You can only imagine my fear when the kids didn't sleep. We put them in the car straight from bed but they woke up. Ryder started singing - and continued to sing until we hit Gawler (that's about an hour, maybe more), before he got bored and fell asleep. And we had nothing but sleeping children until Monash where we quickly stopped, got the boys out of their pyjamas and gave them a very quick snack to tie them over until our official breakfast at Mildura.
And you know what? We got to Mildura, at 9:30am. On time. *fistpumps*
This was pretty much what happened on each leg of our journey. And lucky for us, we planned a stop every 3-hours at a location that had a good play area and access to toilets, food, etc. So we stopped for a meal/snack, let the kids have a play and 'tire themselves out' to get through the next 3 or so hours. And it worked. (Thank you Google maps!)
Logan happily played his new 3DS, watched a DVD or played with trading cards/new toys from Christmas - And it was great as he was also on hand to help us out with Ryder if he needed anything we couldn't reach.
And Ryder? Well the incredibly mobile 'cyclone child' slept. He slept pretty much inbetween each leg of our drive, except perhaps the last half hour. Those half hours were 'hellish' as he was over it, hungry or just wanted to run amock, but for us we were so close to where we needed to stop that we just did what we needed to do to keep him occupied for those 30-mins. We had that light at the end of the tunnel that didn't make us lose our minds.
We arrived in QLD, enjoyed our 5 days of running around to Theme Parks, spending time with family and shopping, and drove home. And we got home, on time. We survived!
Can you imagine THIS greeting you?!
I still get chills!
What a great bussiness you have with mummy meetings, that really is fantastic, there are moms who really need it.
ReplyDeleteCan´t you go international than I will run it here in the Netherlands LOL