Birthday

The day came. It actually, in all reality, came. My sweet babies, my darling Maggie Elaine and Captain Maxwell turned one whole year old today. And thankfully, Christian and I were not so short-sighted and unbelieving as to not make preparations.





I stayed up until midnight last night finishing a teepee for a special birthday surprise {tutorial from here}. We gave the babes their presents this morning: a walker for Max, and a little piano for Maggie. So far, they both love the piano and seem confused by the walker except that they both know they hate to use it for walking.

Christian stayed home from work and we visited the North Carolina Zoo today. We scheduled our departure so they could have their first nap in the car, and our plan worked perfectly; they fell asleep in their new big kid car seats and slept the whole way. Once there, we quickly realized that one year old, as mature as it may sound, is still too young to get any real excitement out of the zoo. It was also very warm, and we spent a lot more time walking than we had expected. Nevertheless, they were champs.

We drove home during second naps, and then Christian was gracious enough to take over while I crashed. We weren't ready for birthday celebrations to be over, so we got back into the car after dinner and visited Goodberry's for ice cream and some good brick-slapping. Our kids were exhausted by bed time, and Maggie in particular required constant holding. We sang them a Happy Birthday song and told them about all the things they accomplished during the past year before putting them down.

It's strange, but looking at them and seeing how old they are makes me realize that even though they're mine, and I've spent every day of their lives taking care of them, there's still so much about them I have to learn. There's more getting to know them the more they grow, and I'm so glad I have the opportunity to spend time with them.

Dear babes, I love you so much. I told you today that I love you times a hundred, but really I hope you know I love you times infinity. Thank you for making me a mama; it's my favorite.

Dream a Little Dream

First, thank you all for your kind comments on yesterday's post! It's always encouraging to hear friendly thoughts and wishes, and to be reminded that bad days happen to everyone. Our Tuesday turned out to be wonderful, much to my relief and mine and the babes' mutual happiness.

Second, I've been noticing recently that roughly 85 percent of my dreams are just the same three dreams over and over. Is that strange?

1. I often dream that I'm in school again {either high school or college}, and it's nearing the end of the semester. Suddenly I realize that I forgot to attend a certain class for several weeks. I don't know the material at all, I haven't turned anything in, and there's no way I'm going to pass a final exam. Occasionally I also have trouble being on time, actually finding classes, and parking in an acceptable space. While these dreams are torturous to experience, it's always such a relief to wake up and realize that the clanging of "Deadlines! Deadlines! Deadlines!" in my head is meaningless, and nothing is due. Ever. For the rest of my life, if I want.

2. I think the dream where you're trying to run but you just can't seem to move your legs fast enough is a common one. I more often dream that I'm furious with someone and I want to slap them in the face and I can't. I try over and over, but for some reason my arm slows every time it gets close and I end up just swiping the person weakly with my hand. It's incredibly frustrating. I also dream that I'm so angry I want to swear {fun fact: I've only cursed out loud four times in my life, and all of those times were on accident}, but I can't get the word to come out. I feel like maybe this indicates that my subconscious is disturbed in some aspect; I'd rather not analyze it too closely.

3. The third reoccurring dream I have isn't really a dream; it's what my brain imagines when I'm half-asleep in the middle of the night. Unsurprisingly for a new mother, what my brain imagines is that there's a baby in bed next to me. Usually I'm holding the baby, but sometimes they're laying between me and Christian, and sometimes they're about to crawl off the side of the bed. The problem with this dream is that it keeps waking me up until I've proved to myself definitively that all babies are in their beds. I remember once when Max and Maggie were about four months old I kept dreaming that Maggie was sleeping in my arms, even though my partially awake brain knew it wasn't true, so I squished the little pillow that I sleep with in my hands and thought, "See? Babies don't squish like that, so I must be holding a pillow, not a baby." And just last week, I woke Christian up and had him tell me that Max was safe in his crib.

Do you have the same dreams over and over? I'd love to hear about them!

*photos taken yesterday on our walk and edited with the Instagram app. You can follow me on Instagram here.

Days Like This

It must be said: yesterday was a terrible day. A horrible, no good, very bad day. No one was sick or injured or teething {I think}, but nonetheless it was a day filled with whining and frustration and crying {hey, everyone, tears all around! On me!}. Also, it was a day filled with:

- Max's shoes not fitting onto his huge feet when we were trying to get ready to go to Target, even though I could have sworn they were the right size.

- Throwing said shoes across the room because seriously, WTH, shoes??

- Max going to Target barefoot.

- Babies getting antsy at Target because their mama is looking at all the baby shoes, trying to find a pair that might fit her son's giant clown feet, instead of pushing the cart around.

- Max continually pulling on Maggie's jacket sleeve, and Maggie fussing.

- Max pulling really hard, or pinching, or possibly biting Maggie's arm in the cereal aisle, and Maggie losing it completely.

- Carrying Maggie in one arm for the remainder of our Target trip to keep her happy and to keep Max from upsetting her again; pushing a ginormous double cart with the other arm.

- Buying ice cream because the day sucks so hard.

- Buying two baby gates, in the hopes that one of them might keep Max from climbing up the stairs.

- Max whining, clinging to my feet, and climbing up the back of my legs while I put away groceries even though, ohmygoodness! Child, nothing is wrong!

- Trying Max's new shoes on his feet, only to discover that somehow they are also too small.

- Throwing said shoes across the room because seriously, WTH, shoes??

- Opening the carton of ice cream and sharing it with babies, hoping a treat would reset the day and help everyone be happy and normal again.

- Attempting to talk to my mom on the phone about what a terrible day it had been, but not being able to because of two babies, pulling on me and trying to eat the phone.

- Giving everyone a timeout/hiding in the bathroom for a minute so I don't start yelling or being mean. Twice.

- Feeling like a coward for hiding from my kids.

- Trying to calm babies down, but not being able to. Max not being content with just one side of me and clawing at Maggie, trying to get to my other side; Maggie consequently screaming so loud and scaring Max.

- Calling Christian sobbing because I'm beyond rational thought and need him to tell me what to do.

-Coming downstairs after talking to Christian to find Max trying to find comfort in my sweatshirt, since his blanket was in the washing machine.

- Trying to give babies lunch, but having Maggie cry and cling to me every time I put her in her booster seat.

- Holding and rocking babies until my arms hurt. Singing lullaby songs over and over and over.

- Finally being able to feed babies lunch. Realizing Maggie needs to go down for a nap immediately afterward.

- Maggie rolling over no less than six times while I tried to give her a pre-nap diaper change.

- Putting both babies in bed and feeling too exhausted to move. Having a massive headache.

- Suffering through several more meltdowns and tantrums post-nap, most of them involving Max crawling over Maggie's hands.

- Pulling Max off the stairs before he climbed too high four times.

- Starting to cry in front of the babies, and feeling awful because it scared and confused them.

- Wishing and wishing for Christian to come home.

- Christian coming home and offering to take care of the babes while I take a nap because he could tell how tired I was.

- Crying out of relief for a minute before going to sleep.

- Waking up and feeling more normal.

- Having to put Max in one of Maggie's sleepers for bedtime because I never finished doing baby laundry.

- Being glad the day was over and that I never had to live through it again.

Important Thoughts 25.0

25.1: Maggie is just the greatest eater. She'll eat any finger foods I put on her tray; she's gobbled up black beans, grape tomatoes, butternut squash, egg yolk {hard boiled or scrambled}, mozzarella cheese, brown rice balls, avocado, and pasta with tomato sauce eagerly. She also, of course, loves any little dessert bits I share with her before Christian sees what I'm doing and gives me stern looks. Max likes to stick to the basics: fruit {usually grapes, blueberries and strawberries} and pieces of whole wheat bread crust are his favorites. If I sneak anything else in his mouth, he makes a confused faces and flaps the food off his tongue with his fingers. And speaking of eating...

25.2: Max is constantly exploring the possibilities of food. He's interested in the texture of everything, and likes to squish food in his tiny palm or rub it on his tray if he's not interested in tasting it. He also likes to get drips of baby oatmeal and yogurt from the corners of his mouth, feel it between his fingers, and then play with the hair behind his right ear. By the end of mealtime, that piece of hair is almost always sticking straight out, caked with dried oatmeal. I also found a whole Cheerio in there today.



25.3: I think my babies are moving towards having just one nap during the day instead of two. It's a huge bummer, because for the past couple of months we've been enjoying two coordinating two-hour naps. That's four hours of both babies sleeping, four hours of mama-gets-to-have-free-time. And it's been just amazing. The prospect of going down to just one nap and the fussiness that goes with trying out a new nap schedule is not appealing. It also brings up a lot of questions, like, how long would that nap even be? Would it mean that they would sleep in later in the morning? When would I get myself dressed and ready for the day -- when they're awake? Wait until they end up going down? Wake up early?? Any thoughts you have on baby naps would be appreciated!

25.4: I almost don't want to write about this, because it still hurts my heart to think about, but Max fell down our front steps yesterday. I can't emphasize enough how terrible I feel. I can see him in my head again and again, tumbling slowly down on the bricks. It was just the worst, and even more so because it was my fault. My stupidity and my neglect. He's okay now, other than a little scratch on his face and one on the top of his head, but I feel awful. How could I let that happen, when I'm supposed to take care of him, and when he's so afraid of falling? I know he probably has forgotten all about it, and that he still loves me and trusts me, but I think it a way that makes it worse.



25.5: Maggie is falling more in love with her Daddy every day, and I couldn't be happier. She's been a mama's girl for so long. It's wonderful to see her reach out her {tiny, squishy, dimpled, pudgy} arms to Christian, and sweet that she's so excited when he gets home. {On the other hand, she's now devastated when he leaves for work, which makes it a little harder for him to leave.} I think her first word will be "da-dee" -- she's already said it a couple of times, but won't say it consistently, so we're hesitant to claim that she's really talking for real. Max loves to play with his Daddy best, but he still comes to me when he's sad, and I love that. I know it won't last forever.

On Babies Growing Up

Christian and I play a game wherein we pretend that March 20th is never going to happen again. Our babies will be eleven months and 28 days old on March 19th, and then the world will stop. Time will no longer move forward, and our babies will never be one year old. How could they? It was just weeks ago that we brought them home from the hospital.



In my heart I've already resigned myself to the inevitable. Refusing to acknowledge how old they are doesn't keep me from seeing how big they've gotten. Or how much they've learned. Or the growing up they've done.

Maggiebaby is finally taking an interest in crawling. She loves to scoot around on the floor like an inchworm; I think she realizes that sometimes the only way to get what she wants is to get it for herself. For example, I'm never going to hand her dust bunnies to eat. That's gross. But when she's on her belly she can move around and pick up all the little fuzz balls she wants, and she seems to want all of them. She can even stick them in her mouth when I'm not looking. Sneaky Maggie. {Sneaky like Buddy.}



Max got his first haircut today. I put him in a polo shirt and saw {to my horror!} that he had a little mullet peeking over the collar. Since I happen to know that mullets aren't Max's style, and since I wouldn't trust anyone else with scissors near my son's head, I sat him in his booster seat and trimmed those shaggy hairs away. I admit it, it broke my heart. I almost cried when the first lock of my baby's hair fell to the floor. Then when we were done I changed him into two-piece pajamas. He is turning into just the biggest boy.



What happened to my tiny little grasshopper babies?

Instead of Napping

Continuing the thought-train of this post, I often get asked, "So do you nap when the babies nap?" And the answer is, probably not as often as I should. I know my pregnant body could use the rest, but I'm too easily lured by the prospect of quiet, uninterrupted alone time to sleep. Most days during morning naps I get on the computer and visit my usual haunts {e-mail, Google Reader, Twitter, Pinterest} and then either Internet surf or blog; during afternoon naps I try to get householdy work done and prep dinner.

This past week, I got bit by the nesting bug. Bit hard. Several nights I was awake in bed, listening to Christian sleep and making the longest mental list of everything I want to do before newbaby comes. If just planning and wishing accomplished anything, I would have redecorated every room in our house already. My usual self would leave plans as plans, but I've been feeling a bit ashamed of my declaration in this post that I don't let Pinterest affect my day-to-day life, so last week during morning naps I actually did stuff. To wit:



1. Immediately after moving in, Christian and I put up the curtains that used to hang in our old living room in our current eat-in kitchen. Not buying new curtains saved us money, but there were some issues. In addition to the panels being about ten inches too long, we were left with a curtain hardware mis-match that was driving me crazy. {See the before here.} Last week I finally got around to fixing the problem. I cut the silver grommets off the top of each panel, then hung the panels upside down with curtain clips that matched the already-installed rods. I then pinned & hemmed the curtains to the right floor-skimming length using the sewing machine Christian got me for Christmas. It may be cheesy, but now I smile every time I look at them.

2. I have a vision for Max and Maggie's bedroom. A vision that includes gray walls, chalkboard paint, colorful art, and paper mache letters above their cribs. Letters kind of like these, only I want to spell out my babies' names. And I don't want to pay three dollars for each letter when I need eight letters {and an ampersand}. I found this tutorial on how to make paper mache letters out of cereal boxes, and since then I've been a busy crafting bee. I love how they're turning out; I think the final product will be perfect. The problem here is that I can make the letters more quickly than we use up boxes of cereal, so I've only half-finished three letters so far. {If you live nearby, I would greatly appreciate the donation of your empty cereal boxes.} Also, how does one hang paper mache letters on the wall?

3. I was itching to try out fake calligraphy after I saw this pin, and then my friend Madeline went and created something awesome. She even hung it on the wall. And I thought, "I could do that right now." So I did. I used a line from Christian's and my song, "Your Song." {I had to look up the lyrics to make sure I got them right; apparently when Ewan McGregor sings them in Moulin Rouge he changes up the words a bit.} And behold, I even hung mine up. I really did. I'm hoping it's the beginning of an awesome gallery wall.

4. For my sister-in-law Catherine's birthday in December, I got her a membership to Flower-of-the-Month Club. {Meaning, I promised to plant flowers in the hanging baskets she has in front of her house once a month. I just wanted it to sound fancier.} For January I planted purple violas and white-and-purple pansies. I got some plan white pansies, too, but I ended up not needing them. I couldn't bear to throw them away, and it seemed silly to go through the trouble of returning them to Lowe's when I only would have saved four dollars. So I planted them in pots I had sitting in my yard. Now they're cheering up my kitchen table.

Is there anything you've been inspired to create lately? I'd love to hear about it!

On Discovering Newbaby's Gender

baby bump photos at 17 and 19 weeks
Spoiler alert: We're not finding out if newbaby is a boy or a girl. Or at least, we're not finding out until he or she is born. If you're impatient with this decision {as some have already claimed that they are}, you can place the blame squarely on my shoulders. I came up with the idea, and Christian agreed only reluctantly. In fact, Christian agreed partly because he didn't {and still doesn't} think I would last my entire pregnancy without caving.

But I'm not going to cave. I have my reasons for waiting. The first, the one I share with everyone, is that we don't need to find out this time. We already have a boy and a girl, so we're prepared for either.

The second reason is more personal. I've expressed before that I hope newbaby's birth is different in many ways from Max's and Maggie's. And I do hope. I have the dear, sweet dream that I'll have normal labor, and a normal delivery, and right after newbaby is born, Christian will get to tell me "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" and then I'll get to hold him and look at him and meet him {or her}. And I have faith that it's going to happen, this time.

Everything seemed so precarious with my first pregnancy. We had trouble getting pregnant, and then we had trouble staying pregnant. I remember going into the doctor's office at eight weeks, going into the emergency room at 11 weeks, calling the doctor panicked in the middle of the night at least twice, and then of course my hospital stay at 28 weeks, bed rest, and birth at 33 weeks.

I was worried the whole time that I wouldn't get the opportunity to know my babies. I wanted to so badly, and I sucked up every piece of available information about them, just in case I didn't have the chance later. I loved knowing that I had a boy and a girl inside me. I loved it when I discovered that Maggie got the hiccups often, almost every day. I loved being kicked hard from the inside and knowing who it was. I was desperate for knowledge about them. Every evidence of life and personality was incredibly important to me.

But I feel safer this time. I'm not worried. I'm {dare I say it?} confident that everything will be okay. That newbaby will be okay. That we'll get to keep him {or her}, that I can wait to learn everything there is to know about him. That there will be time later.

My third reason for waiting is the absurdly obstinate and inanely petty reason that Christian doesn't think I can. And so, I insist that I will.


baby bump photos at 20 and 23 weeks

Important Thoughts 24.0

24.1: Last night as Christian and I were getting ready for bed, we were talking about... something. Working? We were talking about something related to working. I don't remember all the details. {You like where this story is going, don't you?} I do remember it was something about working because I remember Christian saying through his dental floss, "You wish you could stop working." And I said through mine, "No, I don't. I just wish I had more energy." And it's true. The work I'm doing now is the work I've looked forward to accomplishing my entire life. I've always wanted to be a mother, and now I get to be -- that's awesome. Our conversation reminded me of this post, which I think is something every mother should read and think about {and laugh at -- if you read it and you don't laugh, I don't know if we can be friends anymore}.

24.2: I got my very first nasty anonymous comment on the blog last week, and it was not pleasant. {Don't go look for it -- it's not there anymore. I deleted that mess like I would step on a cockroach if I found one in my kitchen.} In a way I felt validated as a blogger, because all the big-time blogs get nasty anonymous comments, so maybe this was a sign that someone thought I was important enough to try to bring down. On the other hand, it just sucked. The worst part was that, since this person chose to attack me in a way that left them zero percent accountable for what they said, I had no way to respond. I couldn't say, "Hey! All those terrible things you're accusing me of? Stealing intellectual property, copyright infringement? Yeah, I didn't do that. And I can prove it!" Nope, I just have to let it go and move on.

24.3: It was amusing to hear a couple people mention in the comments section of this post that strangers often mistake their child's gender. We had to visit the pediatrician on Tuesday, and when our doctor walked into the room, he said, "And how are these two girls doing today?" Shock! Amazement! I was shocked and amazed! Max, besides looking like the most boyish boy that ever was a boy, was wearing a gray rocketship sleeper and clutching his blue blanket. Why, if I had two girls, would I dress one in a pink polka-dotted bumblebee sleeper, and the other in rocketships? This guy may have been smart enough to get through medical school, but was he ever dumb. {But really, he was a very competent doctor and other than thinking my bearsy boy was a girl, I actually liked him a lot.}

24.4: I think so many things my babies do are adorable, but the sweetest thing has to be giving hugs and kisses. I never want to forget these first demonstrations of affection. Max gives hugs by laying his head on my shoulder and putting his arms down by his sides. Also by crawling up to me and putting his head in my lap, or just gently butting his head into mine. Maggie likes to reach up with one hand around my neck and grab onto my shirt while wiggling her bottom. I can count the number of {very wet and sloppy, but no less dear} kisses that Max has given me on one hand; Maggie will give me a kiss almost every time I ask. She also gives kisses {hers are neater and quicker than her brother's} to toys, the mirror, and family members who have been very, very good. I kind of can't wait until they can speak the words "I love you."

*this post is part of a link up with E TELLS TALES

Wherps!

{Zinnias from my walk with the babes today.}

So this is a post about what a big clueless dork I am.

As you may recall, I wrote a post asking for questions over a month ago. I made the comments on that post private, because other people did and it made sense {for reasons explained in the previously referenced post}. Since I have Blogger send me e-mails whenever someone comments on ye olde blog, I waited for the questions to pour into my inbox. None came, and none came, and none came, and I felt a little forlorn. No questions, not even out of courtesy or friendship or pity?

But no, not one. I contemplated whether I should call myself out for being pretentious enough to assume that people wonder anything about my life, or whether I should bluff it and answer pretend-asked questions {pathetic, I know}. Finally, last night as I was blogging because I just couldn't hold back the words that were in me, I had almost decided to pretend like the whole FAQ post hadn't happened at all. And then I saw it -- I had unmoderated comments waiting for my approval. I had gotten questions, and, dense as I occasionally prove myself to be, hadn't realized.

I apologize. I'm now getting my answers to your questions ready, and I'll start posting them next week. First up: the story behind Max's first name.

P.S. You better believe Christian made fun of me last night. "You clown," I believe, were his exact words. Christian also makes fun of me whenever I say "wherps," a deliberate mispronunciation of "whoops."

UPDATE: Christian wanted me to clarify that he's the one who came up with "wherps" -- it's not funny to make fun of the way someone pronounces something, but it is funny to make fun of someone who pronounces something the same way you pronounce it and act like they're crazy for doing so. When I say "wherps!" Christian is always quick to reply, "No. Nobody says that."

The Story of Our Yesterday

Prologue


My Maggiebaby was born with an extra thumb. Christian told me, after he had been to see our newly born babies and as I was being stitched up post-delivery, that our girl had a tiny extra digit. I thought he was kidding, but he told me that he "was strictly instructed not to make any jokes at this point," which was good advice.

It was never a big deal to us, this extra thumb -- we claimed our right as new parents to call our daughter perfect regardless, and meant that description with all our hearts. Since then I've smiled to myself whenever I hear soon-to-be mothers and fathers wish for ten fingers and ten toes. Um, how about eleven fingers?

Chapter 1


Christian and I put off having this little thumb dealt with. At first, perhaps, because she was such a tiny baby and we couldn't bear the thought of her going through surgery. After that point I blame exhaustion, and the fact that it was such a nothing issue for us. We made a few "what has three thumbs?" jokes, and planned to show what would be embarrassing pictures to her future boyfriends, but otherwise almost never thought of it. Eventually, though, we made an appointment to see a pediatric orthopedist, and then scheduled surgery to have that eleventh finger removed.

It was at this point I began to worry. My Maggiebaby under general anesthesia? My Maggiebaby not allowed to eat anything after midnight? I prayed to allay my fears, and did my best to have faith.

Chapter 2


The night before her surgery, we kept Maggie up extra late in the hope that she would sleep longer. In the early morning I listened closely for her sleepy voice, and ran in to give her a pacifier every time she stirred. At 8:00, however, she was definitely awake, and we still had an hour before we even needed to leave for the hospital. When she realized I wasn't going to feed her, I found it necessary to employ techniques I had learned from mothers with colicky babies, and we vacuumed the living room for 45 minutes. She did a good job in her car seat, and waited patiently while I checked us in and gave out our insurance information. At 10:30 they took us back to the waiting area where I changed her into the smallest hospital gown ever made. I prepared myself to keep her happy for another hour and a half until she was scheduled to go back for surgery.

Chapter 3


My Maggiebaby, who before yesterday I might have described as "a little fussy at times," has proved herself to be a champion among babies. The sweetest, the best-natured, the absolutely most patient baby. Maggie was not taken into surgery at 12:15. Maggie was taken into surgery at 3:00. Our doctor was delayed by an operation that took much longer than expected. And my darling girl, my adorable firstborn child, who usually waits no more than five hours between feedings, was miraculously content with her pacifier while we waited. She dozed for long periods of time on her pathetically small gurney, occasionally waking and wanting to be held, or to watch TV.

At one point, when my patience was wearing thin and she let out a weak little cry, I began sobbing to a sympathetic nurse about how she hadn't eaten for fifteen hours, and should we just give up and go home already? I'm not ashamed to admit, I think my baby is a better person than I am. She is amazing to me.

Chapter 4


The surgery, once begun, only lasted 15 minutes. She didn't even need an IV, and thank goodness -- I've had enough of baby IVs. I was told it was a simple procedure that went well. She has one stitch, which is dissolvable and should fall out on its own. The bandage on her hand, the doctor told me, could be taken off at home if we felt it was too tight. We could give her baby Tylenol if we thought she was in pain.

When I was allowed to go back to Recovery, she was in the arms of a comfortingly mothering nurse, sucking down her second bottle of Pedialyte. When I held her, she let me know just what she thought of the events of the day. All of the frustration and rage she had been holding back were now vented on me. She yelled until she suddenly fell asleep on my shoulder. I quietly packed us up, and as we were driving off the hospital campus, I cried again and said prayers of gratitude that the whole ordeal was over.

Epilogue


Maggie is doing well. She's been a little more sleepy than usual, I think is the biggest difference. Her hand seems a little sensitive when we pull it through the sleeves of her clothing, but she doesn't mind gnawing on the bandage when the urge to suck her thumb strikes. And now, ten fingers and ten toes -- that's what's important, right guys?

We Are a Happy Family

Christian and I are on our way down to Morehead City right now {I'm writing this post courtesy of Catherine's iPhone. Boy, does this keyboard take some getting use to}. Just three days after the twins were born, my SIL Elizabeth had her third baby. And while I delivered seven weeks early, Clark came right on time. Consequently, he's younger, but weighed a pound and a half heavier than both my babes combined at birth. I think Christian and I joked about little Clarkie being a tank a couple times too often for Elizabeth's comfort. {It was only because we were jealous of his chubbiness, LB.}

The purpose of our trip today is so we can be at Clark's blessing tomorrow. We would have gone in the morning, but 9:00 am church means we would have had to leave way early in the morning. We've never traveled more than 45 minutes in the car at one time before, so this is an adventure. Being together with family makes it worth it, even if this trip ends up being a screaming baby nightmare. Two hours down, and they've been sleeping peacefully so far. Cross your fingers the remaining hour goes by as easily and quietly for us!