Alternate title – Well, This Should Be Fun: The Christmas Edition

Ashley will be hosting the big Festivus for the ‘Pressed of Us finale here on Friday because I will be a bit indisposed. B and I are gluttons for punishment and we have decided to make the trek home to Memphis for Christmas. In the car. With the baby. The crawling baby.

Now, you will recall that we have done this before. And you will recall that it wasn’t that bad. Scratch that; it wasn’t bad at all. At the time, our Wee Cee was twelve weeks old when we went from our home in North Carolina to Florida to Tennessee and back to North Carolina once again. She slept a lot and was content as long as one of our faces was visible to her when she was awake. She was still on a 100% liquid diet and had like two toys that she was attached to.

Oh, how things have changed.

C is basically a human now which means that she needs to be entertained and she insists on eating real, spillable food and (ugh) moving around. And for some strange reason, staring into her little mirror that we have facing her car seat just doesn’t hold her fascination like it used to. I KNOW. What can I say? She’s no narcissist.

This is what we like to see.

But we’re going, and believe it or not, it’s worth all the toil because I’m looking forward to seeing our family and FINALLY introducing her to besfrinn Cameron, who is also making the trip from SoCal to Memphis.

I am compiling a plan to make all this unmiserable (who am I kidding? it’s not going to be fun, so I’m just shooting for not miserable), and  it does not involve plying the baby or myself with Nyquil. Snacks are integral to making this worth it. I kind of hate myself for becoming that parent who just stuffs her child’s face when the going gets rough, but I’m just writing off all the rice treats and tiny apple slices she’ll be getting as extra practice for her fine motor skills. Also, coffee. The good, expensive, flou-frou kind. Not for her. For us! I’m pretty sure that the promise of the good stuff will jet us through the day.

Ever since we decided to make the leap and just go on our Christmas trip, I’ve known that her sleep schedule is going to get really out of whack the instant we pull out of our driveway. At the ends of our driving days, we’ll just let her stay up a bit just so she can get her crawl on. I’ve made my peace with that. She’ll eventually return to her amazingly restful self – fingers crossed, knocking on wood, rain dance performed.

So Internet, I’m coming to you once again asking for any real* tips you might have for traveling with crawlers. I will accept them with open arms.

*Yeah, just so you know, the whole “give them a shot of whiskey” comment has run its course and I hereby ban it. If you want to be funny, come up with something original. Look at me, being all dictatorial.