Many times we have done the "put the kids in the car at 3am" trick only to be left with wide awake children at an unusually cruel hour for a verified non-morning person (me). We also wanted to avoid as much of the "he's touching me syndrome" which is somewhat unavoidable when you cram eight people and their stuff into a large SUV. Elliott thought of it, I get no credit for the idea outside of agreeing to it, but we decided to leave in the evening and let the kids sleep in the car. Since I am a night owl anyway, and Elliott is an early bird, it is probably obvious who took which driving shift. :)
I took a good 5-hour nap after lunch on Sunday, Elliott let the kids ride bikes all afternoon. Everyone except E and I got into pajamas. We headed out around 7:30pm and the kids were excitedly chatty while the sun was up. As soon as it got dark, it took a little more than an hour for them all to be asleep, E included. There was much discussion amongst the children before leaving on the trip about whether Dad's snoring would keep them all awake, but I assured them that sitting up would keep him from snoring. Around Fort Worth he proved me wrong, but thankfully, he didn't wake anyone up.
Since I had the first driving shift, we started out with lullaby music. After the kids were asleep I put in my Philippians CD, all scripture, still very relaxing. Once I drove into Oklahoma, everyone solidly asleep, I threw in a Mercy Me CD and started car dancing. I am not sure what the other people thought as they drove past, and I am kind of glad no one was awake in my car to see it, but it was fun and was a great substitute for having no one to talk to. Ha!
Elliott took over in Oklahoma City and we are almost in Kansas. Kids are sleeping, we should be settled in Omaha by 10am. I tried getting a picture of the sleeping dominoes, I mean, children, but it is too dark and I dare not risk waking them for a photo. They are quite definitely touching as they are laying on the back of the person next to them so they don't have to sleep sitting up, but no one is complaining. Yippee!
So far, so good on the travel experiment! Car dancing without witnesses was a bonus. :)
*** Most of my readers know I don't usually say anything about trips until we get back... But we actually have friends house (and dog) sitting for us, so the usual "advertising our house will be empty" concern doesn't apply. I am hoping to post daily, photos and everything!!!
*** UPDATE ***
We are almost out of Kansas. The children didn't sleep much after our 2am Oklahoma City stop, but I think that might have something to do with E's loud jamming music selection. Ahem. Just saying. However, I just looked back and saw that Micah had caved into sleepy land again, and since it is now light I snapped a photo. We have about 3 1/2 more hours! Woooo Hoooo!
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