December 24, 2011

How To Survive

Late Friday my Grandmother passed away. My mother called early Saturday morning to break the news. I threw our stuff in a suit case, some books in a bag, and the knitting in a bag. Yes, books, not movies. We don't have a portable DVD player nor do I think of them as necessities.
So how does one survive a 13hr drive with a six year old?
Honestly there was very little of this. Just late late at night and this brief time on the way home yesterday. She has never been one for sleeping in the car and really just doesn't like it.
Like I said a lot of books.
And a note book and a bag of colored pencils.
Lots of coloring and drawing. Just a notebook no coloring books. A friend gave her an activity book for the ride home and she enjoyed that change.
Also being that Mr. Gnome couldn't join us meant that we could have epic sing-a-longs at the top of our lunges.
Start gazing once the sun went down. Living as close to a city as we do the stars are never bright enough for her. She found Orion and Pegasus. I had to look up Pegasus since I wouldn't know it from bob but apparently it's in the sky this time of year. Bug does love her space books.
We did have a brief scare where the radio refused to read the Ipod for the first three hours of our trip home. We attempted some unaccompanied sing-a-longs; be glad you weren't there for that. I started talking to myself on a boarder line psychotic level. Thankfully I got the radio to behave in a West Virginia rest area parking lot. Resulting in me scaring the family getting into their car next to us as I screamed out my thanksgiving.
It was therapeutic to drive in December to see Grandma away. We used to drive up to her and Grandpa's house for Christmas every year. It was also wonderful to have the entire family together for the first night of Chanukah.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Sorry for your loss. Glad your trip went well. We never bought the DVD players for our car. Used our imagination to entertain the girls. Now we have a computer that can play DVDs, and we barely use it on trips!

jcg said...

I'm glad you survived and very grateful you came.

Tempest ina Pot of Tea said...

Sorry about your grandma, but glad you have such a good little traveler to go with you. Take care.

Meghan said...

sounds like our kind of road trip!