Why do I assume I can do things?

Like take the boys, alone on a (should be) 4.5 hour road trip to my parents house? Oh, I know why. Because other moms take their children on long plane flights, road trips, etc. and handle everything with such grace. I should really know that a person who calls her child an asshole can't handle things with grace.

By the end of the trip I had announced I was no longer taking questions (but you have to, Mommy, you have to) and had basically yelled at James, "WHAT JAMES, WHAT?? I AM RIGHT HERE! YOU CAN SEE ME!" Not my finest hour(s).

I really thought it was going to be fine. Not good, not great, but fine. I really should have known better when Liv said to me, "Oh, I guess you can do that on your own." The Wall's never think twice about taking the boys anywhere so that really should have been my first clue.

I had so many things to do in the car. I had the iPad charged and ready (they fought over it), I had a magnetic dress up game (they fought over it), I had individual bags filled with cars, crayons, airplanes and brand new coloring books for use with the new car trays I made them.

Yes, those are perfectly good cookie sheets, Modgepoded with colored paper. Your eyes are not deceiving you. I saw it here and remembered the night before we left that I had purchased these cookies sheet months ago (as in about six months ago) and being the craft horder that I am, came across them during my clean out.

I obviously did not have time to spray paint them like she did, but I let the boys pick their paper color, traced the sticker that came with the sheets and got to work. 

And you all know I was sooooo proud of myself for having all the stuff and whipping these up.

What is the phrase, the pride goes first before the fall? Just give me a minute to really build it up for you.

Here are my sweet boys (an hour of out town) holding their trays and looking so happy that their mommy is so crafty.

This is also before I realize that the cookie sheets, though the smallest I could find, were still way too big for a two year old. James did not like the crayons all being on his table so he threw them each onto the floor then screamed for me to get them. To balance it on his legs he had to hold it with one hand. This meant that when he tried to play with the magnetic men they would slide around causing him to scream more. To summarize for you, there was a lot of James screaming at me in the car. A lot.

I will say that Zach loved it. He totally used it a ton and it was perfect. But when Zach was using it, James had to try to use it too. Terrible; it was a terrible, terrible idea. At one point I ripped it out of James' hands, spewing crayons everywhere, and threw it on the passenger seat floor. Again. Not my finest hour(s).

My only good idea of the trip? Stopping at this park just off the highway in Centerville. We stopped both coming and going and it really helped us all to get out and run around. It made it slightly easier get back in the car. Only slightly.

But we made it. And we are all still speaking to each other though I did need some quiet time during James' nap. I am slowly starting to forget the drive...but it is going to take a while.