12+ hour car ride with both girls...and I survived

I decided to take advantage of the end of my maternity leave and road trip it out to Chicago with both girls. I was originally planning to make the drive in 2 days, but decided to drive through the night at the last minute. I left just after dinnertime on Sunday in the hopes that both girls would pass out for awhile. No such luck. Lexi cried/whined on and off for 7 hours and Stasa stayed wide awake until 1:30 AM. Part of that was my fault - I had set up a portable DVD player for her with the SpongeBob movie and I should have just shut it off around her bedtime. Lesson learned.

The drive was fairly boring - we stopped about 6 times total for bathroom breaks and feedings. I was pulled over somewhere in Ohio at 3:00 in the morning for going 85 in a 70 MPH zone. The cop took pity on me and let me off with a warning since both girls woke up and were screaming and I was all alone. I did exactly the speed limit for the rest of the trip and we arrived at Matt's house around 8:30 on Monday morning.

We spent a couple of days with Matt and Loula, YiaYia and the boys. Stasa warmed up to her cousins right away and really loved playing with Alex. It was boiling hot the days we were there, so YiaYia and I set up the baby pool for the kids to play in one day and Stasa ended up spending the entire day in it. She was also a huge fan of their piano and was surprisingly gentle when playing it.





We left Matt and Loula's Wednesday afternoon and headed over to my friend, Anne's house for a long girl's weekend. On the way over I told Stasa we were staying with Anne's daughter, Avery, and she would be able to play with her all weekend. When we got to Anne's house, Stasa ran right in and made herself at home. It took Avery a good 15 minutes or so to warm up to our Tazmanian Devil, but once she did they were off playing. Anne's dad was there and he had both girls (and me) marching around the house in a pretend marching band. Stasa ate it up.


I was initially worried that our little bedtime rebel would ruin Avery's good sleep habits since we planned for both girls to share a room, but after trial and error we figured out a method that worked. We started Stasa off in Anne's bed and moved her to Avery's once she was asleep. The first night we put both girls in Avery's room and when Anne went to check on them, this is what she found. Two little girls playing doctor instead of sleeping.


After many visits and promises (thanks to Anne's husband, Sean), both girls finally passed out.


We ladies had a blast every night after the kids were asleep and Lauren and Julia were saints for putting up with 2 toddlers and 2 babies on what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation. I can't even recall all of the hilarity of having 2 toddlers together for 5 days, but it definitely provided us plenty of entertainment. And I won't pretend it was all sunshine and roses with those 2 monsters because they both definitely had their moments, usually over sharing a toy, but in my opinion they were awesome together. At one point they broke out these foam swords and attacked Anne with them while the rest of us laughed hysterically from the sidelines.


Stasa performed her patented "head dance" for everyone.



Our girls both love playing with our iPads (and Stasa did not like sharing "hers" with Aunt Julia. At all.).



I did notice that it was easier to keep Stasa on her schedule at Anne's house since Avery was there, too. And my non-sleeping baby? She decided to prove me a liar in front of my friends and slept like an angel most days and nights. She even had long moments of being awake and happy - just laying there grinning her gummy smile.


We took a quick trip to Target one day and the girls spontaneously decided to hold hands.


I was definitely sad to leave and almost teared up when Stasa and Avery gave each other the biggest hug and Stasa said "I miss you." I had to sing a song about Avery about a million and one times at Stasa's request once we were in the car. I decided to make the drive home in 2 days since I didn't get a ton of sleep the night before, so we drove to Toledo, OH and stayed overnight. In retrospect I should have just driven a bit longer because both girls fell asleep around 11:00 PM and even stayed asleep once we were at the hotel. Sleeping in 1 bed with both girls wasn't the most comfortable, but I managed to get a good night's sleep in. We finished up our drive on Monday, which took us most of the day. The girls weren't terrible, but I could tell they were tired of being in the car, especially Stasa. The last 2 hours of the trip were the worst. Stasa kept insisting that she needed to go to the potty and Lexi just wouldn't fall back asleep. We finally made it home around 5:00 PM and Stasa was so happy to see her daddy. I had been telling her all day that we were going home and we'd see daddy and she kept getting so excited and asking to call daddy.

Looking back I can't believe I survived that long of a trip alone with both girls, but I would probably do it again if I could. It was worth it to spend time with friends and family.