Vacation Week

10:20 AM Posted In , Edit This 0 Comments »
I'm almost sad to see it go.  Bry had to go back to school today - even though only one district is in session and he will only have two students today - if they don't decide to skip.  The kids are home for another day and back to school tomorrow.  (I wish I could have sent the kids today and kept Bry home another day.  I'm sorta Maxxed out.)

We did have a nice break, though.  Bry got some time to work at the Beorningstead (more on that later this week) and we had a short Spring Holiday over there with my sister and my nephew, Derek.  Bry & I visited the Edward Burne-Jones exhibit in Ottawa (hurry - it closes this Saturday) and we made a quick trip to visit my sister in conjunction with a Youth Temple Trip to Palmyra. 

I did not get pictures of any of this - my first purchase with the tax return will be a new family camera.

 Anyway- we did lots of fun stuff all in one week and none of it was very expensive. 

However.

It turns out that Maxx is NOT a good little traveler.  Molly has always been great.  When she was small, she would happily climb in the car and amuse herself by coloring in a book, reading and singing along to music.  For hours.  She sleeps a lot in the car.  She would occasionally ask the classic "Are we there yet?" question - not out of boredom, but out of excitement to arrive.   Now that she's older, she may ask once or twice how much further we have to go but she's more likely to repeatedly ask if we can gag and hog-tie her brother for the rest of the trip.

Maxx begins whining after about 20 minutes in the car.  He wriggles out of his seatbelt.  He tries to open the door or windows and complains about the child safety lock and power window lock.  He picks fights with his sister.  He throws things.  He would throw things out of the window if he could open it.  He complains that he can't throw things out of the car because he can't open the window.  He wants to carry on endless, inane, repetitive conversations in a muted whiny tone of voice that can't be heard over the road noise.  He does not sleep until approximately 3 minutes before we arrive at a destination or a pit stop.  He wakes up as soon as the speed or direction of the car changes, whining and demanding to know whether we're there yet and adamantly refusing to admit that he needs to pee.

Last night I made up a new family rule for travel.  After 9pm children in the car must be SILENT.   I'm also wondering if we will need to invest in a travel DVD player for him.  I hate the idea of TV in the car but the three older family members LOVE to travel together.  Maxx is just plain unpleasant in the car without (and even sometimes with) constant distraction and interaction and that takes all the joy out of a road trip.  We have lots of family we want to visit - they may just have to move closer.  4 hours seems to be my limit with Maxx.

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