With three weekends of trips to Manhattan, we’ve had lots of time in the car. Long car rides have never bothered me, possibly through my conditioning as a child driving 10 hours to see my grandparents several times per year.
On those all-day journeys, my parents would bring along new toys to occupy me, with the best being a talking doll. When I got older, I would bring a stack of library books to read through in the backseat. Hello, Baby-Sitters Club! But car rides meant playing for hours and a rare opportunity for fast food lunch.
Car rides to Minnesota to see the in-laws are a bit more complicated, especially when the winter brings snow and ice — dangers I never realized existed when I was playing with my doll in the backseat. Plus, we’ve added Henry to the mix which means more hours, silly song CDs and frequent stoppage.
Now, the two-hour weekend drives seem just the right amount of car time. It’s the perfect amount of time to talk and catch up after a busy week.
In the car, the hubs and I both can’t be staring at our cell phone screens or doing work on our laptops. There’s no dishes to be done or diapers to be changed. Henry is tucked cozily in his carseat, and we have 120 miles of uninterrupted conversation. When we run out of topics, I read things out loud to Shea while he drives or we even bring Table Topics cards to spur silly conversations.
I love the games, but my favorite part of the football season just might be the car rides.
LWTK’s mommy blogger, Sarah, is attempting to be a good mama to little Henry, wife to Shea, full-time employee and part-time grad student all while avoiding making dinner from a box every night. In her non-existent free time, she’s running, eating popcorn and blogging about it all at The Gatsby Diaries.
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