430 mile car trip alone with DD=success!!

EVM1216 · September 2012

Thanks in large part to all the excellent suggestions I got here! The 2 trips lasted about 7.5 hours both ways, but they were pretty easy going.

The first trip went like this:

Left at 5:30 am. DD fell back asleep by 7:00. She was really drowsy the whole time she was awake, so she just started out the window commenting on "big trucks." She slept until 9:30 and at 10:00 we'd reached the place I wanted to have brunch. We ate and walked around for about an hour, and got back on the road at 11:00. At that point I gave her the new magna-doodle we bought her. That bought me 40 minutes of joy. When she was done with that I gave her a sucker. she savored that for another 40 minutes when we stopped at a rest area and walked around for awhile. For the last hour of the trip I gave her more suckers- she liked to sample them and if she didn't like one she gave it back and demanded a new one, so all total I think she ate 2 dum-dums. Of course she turned blue and sticky, but was so happy it was worth it.

The trip back:

We left at nap time so she slept for the first 2 hours. Once she woke up I stopped at a rest area for a stretch. She willingly got back in the car, but she was less willing to play with her magna-doodle and less content with her suckers than the ride in, but she was still pretty good. I gave her some juice and snacks, which led to a mini-meltdown about 50 miles from where we were having dinner when I made her stop snacking, but she got over it. 4 hours in we stopped for some dinner and stretching. Then we got back in the car and I gave her stickers which she played with for about 20 minutes. After that we just listened to the new kids music CDs I got her, which she really seemed to enjoy, she listened quietly and danced in her seat for like 2 hours. She fell asleep with about 45 minutes left to go and went straight to bed when we got home.

She woke up to day happy and immediately wanted to pee in the potty, yay! Wins all around. If you made it through this whole post, here is a treat for you:

lulu8109 · September 2012

Yay! I'm glad things went smoothly.

GrayGhost13 · September 2012

Welcome back! So glad to hear it all went well!

lrn327 · September 2012

Yay, that's great!! I was thinking about you this weekend actually because we were doing our own long drive sans-ipad. I'm so glad it went well! BTW, how did the interview go?

EVM1216 · September 2012

lrn327:
I'm so glad it went well! BTW, how did the interview go?

The interview went great. I was a grad. assistant there back when I was getting my masters, so I knew practically everyone involved with the interview, so over all it was pretty low stress. I have to wait for one more interview to be completed (9/19), the decision to be made, and then for the HR processing to be complete before I know for sure one way or another. I was told not to expect anything before the 1st week in Oct. Sad

lrn327 · September 2012

EVM1216:
lrn327:
I'm so glad it went well! BTW, how did the interview go?
The interview went great. I was a grad. assistant there back when I was getting my masters, so I knew practically everyone involved with the interview, so over all it was pretty low stress. I have to wait for one more interview to be completed (9/19), the decision to be made, and then for the HR processing to be complete before I know for sure one way or another. I was told not to expect anything before the 1st week in Oct.

Glad it went so well!! FX for you and hope you find out sooner!