For a 20 month old, car trips that exceed 1 hour are absolute horrific torture (at least for our 20 month old). Which translates into stress and frustration for said 20 month old's mama and papa (a.k.a the Hubbs and me). Yikes. Nonetheless, it would do our children a disservice to relegate them to our 50' by 120' lot in small town Alberta. So, every once in a while, we pack up the mini-van and venture out on the open road.
The trip we took this past long weekend wasn't any different.
It started out with ten minutes of hrmmm maybe this one's going to be different, she seems content, she's watching Toy Story with her brother...has she grown out of --- and thus ensued the wailing. Ay yi yi.
I love the little girl, we both do, desperately and absolutely, but I do not love 3+ hours of crying. We tried snacks. Toys. Bottles. Pulling over. Songs. Nursery rhymes. Turning up the sound on the movie and trying to ignore her. Nothing worked. Short of scrapping the whole trip, which would've been a ridiculous, counter-productive response, we endured. Finally, in the last hour, she fell asleep. Peace.
Once we arrived at our destination, we had a smashing time. She had her own room so she slept like a dream and adhered pretty closely to her normal routine. Our little man was a dream from start to finish, but he's 3 years old and has a very long attention span - he loves movies so as long as the vehicle has an entertainment system, he's good to go.
As we approached our morning of departure, the anxiety and tension between Hubbs and I was palpable. Oh gawd, what were we going to do? Can we really endure 3+ more hours of her obvious strife? And this is where the wisdom of parents of yore enters and that of those today exits. Grandma said, "I have Gravol."
My sister is a pharmacist, she's an expert in drugs. I love having virtually 24-hours access to a drug expert. Between my sister's confirmation that Gravol is perfectly safe and my mother's insistence that Gravol will solve the problem, Hubbs and I broke out the Gravol and gave our daughter a baby dose ten minutes before we left for our trip back home.
I'm not going to sugar coat it and I'm not going to apologize.
IT WAS F'N HEAVEN! I love Gravol. Hubbs loves Gravol. For the first time since our sweet, awesome little girl came into this world, we had a quiet, peaceful, uncomplicated road trip. At first the Gravol calmed her and then she drifted into sleep. She slept for about 3 hours and when she awoke for the final leg she was very calm, sucked on her bottle and watched the movie with her brother. It was magical.
Now, before you crucify my husband and me, sling the judgement, call child services, bear in mind that we did check with a health professional and we used the remedy more for our daughter's comfort than ours. What parent can handle hearing their baby in distress and not want to help?
And if you still want to sling insults - suck it :)
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