Saturday, November 26, 2016

Road Weary

Earlier today I read a friend's Facebook post - she was in the car with a crying baby on the way home from visiting out of town family. We drove many a mile with a screaming child in an infant seat, so I really empathized with her. A little later she posted a picture of the child, then fast asleep. So all's well that ends well. I had a fleeting moment of thankfulness that we were past that stage of life.

We should have moved beyond screaming tantrums in the car, but Michael, our child of routine, has spent the last two days behaving as if he fell right from the pages of The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Vacation. After horrendous traffic nearly the entire stretch between Orlando and Atlanta, we've finally stopped for the evening near Knoxville, Tennessee. Michael is already crashed in the hotel bed, but he spent the last hour of the drive maniacally tormenting everyone in the car. He was also up, laughing hysterically, in the middle of the night last night and refused to be still and try to fall back asleep. He's thrown a fit today about choosing a bed, car snacks, dinner, where his headphones were, and how Harper's looked at him. It's a wonder we didn't toss him out of the car on I-75.

It probably has to do with his being tired, having had more snacks and less nutritionally sound meals than his body is used to, and the disappointment of our vacation coming to an end. He gets into these moods and rants that are almost impossible to snap him out of. He becomes completely unreasonable and the rest of us just have to hang on and try to survive Hurricane Michael. I sincerely hope this is something he grows out of as he gets older, although at this point I'm just hoping tomorrow is a little easier than today. We've got a good four hours of road time left...

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