I CAN Wait To Get On the Road Again

Road trips were easier when my children were too young to talk.

And I’m not even slightly kidding.

I am tempted to skip right over the road trip part, the packing and schlepping from hotel to hotel, the power struggles over potty breaks, the piecing together of meals on the run that are at best 50% high fructose corn syrup, and at worst, McDonalds.

But in our latest round of mileage versus Murphy’s law, there was one moment of sweet tears (as opposed to the many moments of frustrated, tantrum-ish tears).

I sat in the twirly chair, sipping an iced latte, fully acknowledging how low this self-admitted coffee snob had fallen to resort to caffeine under the golden arches. The kids had already inhaled their toxins nuggets and had moved on to squeal and climb and shake out four hours worth of wiggles.

Caed began playing with another boy his age, who innocently encouraged him to run away from Dani. After spending 10 minutes trying to catch up with her brother to no avail, Dani came back to me.

"I can't pind by bro'der! I need to p'ay wid him!"

I pointed her in his direction, and off she went. "Caed! Wait for me!"

And then off he ran.

So I called him down. He came right away, told me he and his friend were pretending Dani was chasing them, that they were having so much fun. I told him how sad Dani was about not catching up to him, how she wanted to play with him. He didn't hesitate.

"Ok," he said, "I didn't know it was making Dani sad."

Then, he turned back to the play area and shouted, "Dani, come on! Let's go up to the top slide!"

"OKAY CAED!!!" she shouted, and tumbled after him.

I looked over and saw Dani climbing up, Caed bending back toward her, lending his hand.

"I couldn't pind you, Caed." she said.

"It's ok. Now we're together." he said.

Aaaaaand......cue the sweet moment tears.

That moment alone refueled me for the next 250 miles.