Storybook Car Trip

The babies have a book called 1-2-3 by Sandra Boynton. It's a cute book that goes through the numbers 1-10. For five it says "Five works well for a ride in the car...as long as the car ride isn't too far." Well, our ride today definitely qualifies as too far...much too far!! After our trip to Massachusetts this fall, which, if you recall, involved a lot of screaming and us listening to white noise or singing a lot of tenge time, we out a lot of effort into planning this trip. We timed our departure to hit the afternoon nap time and planned a stop in Ohio at a library for some extended play time. The car was strategically packed with easy access to a bag of novel toys & favorite books and plenty of snacks. We even bought a headrest mount so we could play their favorite Signing Time videos for part of the trip. The best laid plans...

The trip didn't get off on the best foot with all three kiddos fighting the car nap and fussing and crying on and off for about an hour before giving in. Avery actually fell asleep before the other two, which proved to a problem when Isaiah was still awake and fighting sleep because his crying woke Avery after only 30 minutes of sleep. I don't think Isaiah slept more than 10 minutes. So it was a long drive through Pennsylvania. Once we hit Youngstown Ohio I pulled up directions to the library we had picked out to stop at. Only problem was I had closed the browser window & had a hard time recreating my search. During the confusion we got off the highway & stopped to get the iPad going. We then somehow managed to get back on going the wrong way, tacking on an extra 20min to the trip. The Signing Time show bought us ~30 minutes of relative peace. I did finally find the library. It was in Hudson, a very cute looking little town about a half hour outside of Cleveland. 

we usually take up all the high chairs a restaurant has!

Our first stop was Panera where we tried to satisfy our hangry babies. The gobbled up the kids mac & cheese as well as the turkey & a halo orange we'd brought in from the car. They weren't happy to get back in their car seats after dinner but I promised them a short ride over to the library. The Hudson Library &. Historical Society is a pretty awesome library! And they have a huge children's wing. The babies were enamored with this giant stuffed bear!  Avery was so excited to walk around checking out the new toys that she just kept saying "wow, wow, wow!" It was really cute. We stayed and played at the library for about an hour and then nursed them and changed them into their new xmas jammies. It was right around 7, AKA bedtime, when we loaded back up in the car. The next six hours of the drive flew by with three babies sleeping peacefully from door to door! 

they LOVED this big stuffed bear at the library!

like seriously loved it
(family & friends who are reading this...that does NOT mean they need their own giant bear!)

Did anyone buy that?!? Yeah, I probably overdid it with that faux ending huh?  If only we had been that lucky.  Instead we were lucky to get 45 minutes of peace and quiet at a time for the rest of the trip.  It was a LONG rest of the drive.  We were hoping that once they konked out we could listen to some podcasts, but we were lucky to get through two podcasts over the entire drive and once again got stuck listening to white noise for the bulk of the drive.  We tried a few times to capture the experience by recording the screaming on our phones, but inevitably every time we tried to record it they would stop crying, or at least stop crying so intensely.  We joked that all we had to do was constantly try to record them crying and it would be a slightly more tolerable drive. =)  

 

After a couple of days of  regrouping we loaded them up in the car again to head to northern WI.  I'd be lying if I told you we weren't dreading it, but at least we knew it was only about half the distance and time that we'd just done.  We had brunch with friends on Sunday and left from there right before nap time.  They had fun playing with friends and running around in Maria & Jess' basement, which worked great to let them burn off some energy before loading them in the car.  We expected to have about 45min of fussing/crying before they actually fell asleep and were shocked when they were crashing before we even got on the highway!  They took a nice nap and slept for over an hour, waking up around Milwaukee.  We stopped for a car break at Target just north of Milwaukee to let them move and to pick up a few last minute things.  We were excited to see the triple cart at Target that we've heard other triplet moms talk about, but it turned out to be silly for us to use it because they all wanted to walk or be carried anyway!

the first five minutes

the last two minutes
(note Ellie pushing from the back!)

 Then we got back in the car and put in a movie which helped us out a bit, but we were back to belting out Christmas carols and random kid songs to stave off crying before we knew it.  Turns out Michelle and I really need to brush up on our lyrics for Christmas carols!

We stopped again for dinner before we got to Green Bay and our best option was Qdoba.  They were antsy not wanting to sit still.  These babies are usually so good out to eat.  This was NOT that experience! 

a moment of peace before they got too nutty

at the yogurt place next door

After dinner we needed to nurse them before we put them in the car.  There was a frozen yogurt place next door and we decided to pop over there.  Michelle nursed one baby and I took the other two over and distracted them with frozen yogurt samples. =)  Then we swapped babies and of course, eventually got some yogurt for ourselves!