Just travelin', travelin', travelin' on...

Last night we all slept in our 4th set of beds in as many days.  The last 3 nights were spent at relatives' houses in NC, PA and OH... with a lot of driving and visiting in between!

The car rides have been pretty good actually, overall, although the constant challenge has been trying to get certain over-tired children to sleep, while trying to keep certain other children awake, so they don't stay up until 10:30 pm each night.  We failed pretty much on all counts.

There was this pretty blissful moment at one point, though:

...but it didn't last much longer than that moment.
Miles continues to be our traveling wildcard... or should I say, wild child.  About 20 minutes into the first leg of the trip, he started in with his, "Mommy, get OUT!  Daddy, get OUT!" chant, and has repeated the refrain at pretty consistent intervals over the last 3 days.  But he never had any complete, unconsolable meltdowns, so that was good.  Sometimes he just wanted to be ornery, though, answering, "No" to whatever I suggested as a distraction.  So we had a lot of conversations like this:

Me:  Miles, let's say the books of the Bible.
Miles:  No.
Me:  C'mon.... Genesis...
Miles:  No Genesis!
Me:  Exodus....
Miles:  No Exodus!
Me:  Leviticus...
Miles:  No Viviticus!
Me:  Numbers....
Miles:  No Numbers!
Me:   Deuteronomy....
Miles:  No Doodoo-onomy!
Me:  Joshua....
Miles:  Joshua Judges Ruth!

Finally, he would turn a corner.

My favorite moment of his yelling, though -- yes, there actually was one -- was when he finished whatever protest he was proclaiming with, "Get out!  Go home!  Nee-Nee 2, Minos 4!"  (translation of that last part is "Colsen is 2 years old and Miles is 4 years old.")  He's been throwing that phrase around a lot lately, at random times.  I think he's trying to convince us that we got the birth-order wrong, and he is not supposed to be the younger brother!  He really wants to be the big guy.  Maybe that's at the real heart of all his orneriness!

My other favorite quote from our driving time was by Rayna.  After driving through the mountains of West Virginia for so long, when we finally got to Ohio, she looked around the flat terrain and said, "Oh, the mountains went down!" -- as if they had just sunk back into the ground.

So the traveling has been good -- especially thanks to some books-on-CD and multiple lollipops -- and we're happy now to be in Ohio.  We're also glad we'll get to stay in the same beds for several nights now (well, except for Pete, who jets off to DC on Wed.).... the transitions were getting slightly painful.  Each night's sleep has gotten worse and worse.  Last night the kids finally went to sleep at 10:30 pm, and then Colsen woke up 3 times throughout the night because his feet hurt (??), and Miles awoke for the day at 6:30 am.   Pete is currently getting a much-needed nap. 

And then we're off to explore the Fun Center of Ohio!