Temporary Insanity

Due to a bout of temporarily insanity, we decided to try to drive the 1,100 miles to Oklahoma in one day. In reality, two weeks is a long time to be gone from home with 3 small children, and Ben and I desperately wanted to be back in our own bed. So we got up at 1:30 a.m. on Thursday and hit the road about 2:00 a.m. The timing was perfect - Atlanta at 5:30 a.m., Birmingham at 7:15 (since we crossed back into the Central Time Zone) and Memphis at 11:30 a.m. Nice. Ben drove most of it, and I tended to the kids. See what a good Mommy I am? Connor loves Tootsie Pops. He should be on a billboard: "Friends don't let friends eat lollipops". Silly kid keeps blinking when I take pictures from up close.

This is how Connor sleeps during the day. Pulls the blanket right over his head and crashes. I think he takes after his Auntie Janice.

The girls got snacks from the vending machine at the Arkansas welcome center. Arkansas also has the distinction of having the most disgusting bathrooms I've seen in quite some time.

However, they did have some rather nice, tall sunflowers.

Kelsey had powdered donuts for her snack - can't you tell?

Did you know sugar is a sedative? (Don't worry, I gave her a pillow after I snapped the picture.)

According to MapQuest, it's a 17-hour drive. We did it in 20.5 - not bad.

At least, it wasn't bad until we hit Little Rock. The kids were starting to get antsy, it was around 2:00 or so and just off the interstate was a large city park. We thought we'd stop by and let them play for a while to get their wiggles out and spend some time outside the van. We didn't reckon on the fact that it was about 100 degrees outside, and all of the fun playground equipment was in the full sun. We did find a set of baby swings in the shade, so Connor got one and we squeezed Kelsey in the other. Then Connor got his first motorcycle ride...

But when it came right down to it, we didn't last more than 20 minutes in the heat. We loaded back up in the van, and started looking for a place to eat dinner. Since we'd had breakfast at 6:00 and lunch at 10:30, supper at 4:00 was right on time. Unfortunately, 4:00 also marked the limit of Connor's patience with the van. After a couple of hours of Connor screaming, some traumatic potty stops for the girls and general frustration by all, we finally moved Connor to the back row with his sisters and popped in the modern day babysitter - a DVD.

There they sat in general contentment till we finally got home about 9:30. It's good to be back!