7 Quick Takes-The Epic Road Trip

(And by "epic" I mean holy sweet Lord in Heaven let me make it through this kthankxbye)

1. T minus 2 days until I begin my voyage from Georgia to Wisconsin with 2 small children. In the car. By myself. In a brief moment of weakness last night, I thought, "Is driving really better than flying?" I started thinking about the last disaster trip when we flew from Wisconsin to Texas-with Will, I might add-and remembered how much fun it was to park the car in the long term parking lot. Then wrangle all of our luggage, car seats, and kiddos up to the transfer bus station. Load everything and everyone on to the bus. Exit bus with people and luggage at the terminal. Drag everything and everyone through the terminal in an attempt to find to check-in counter. Sort through my purse with holding a crying baby and trying to keep a curious 3-year old from running off while I attempt to find our respective IDs. Drop off luggage and lug car seats and children over to the (naturally, long) line for security. That's always fun. Attempt to convince Tony through gritted teeth that the ropes are designed to form a line, not give him an opportunity to "swing like a monkey in a tree." Once again, haul out IDs and hand them to TSA agent. Almost sob with relief when the TSA agent informs me I don't have to take off Tony's shoes. Through some divine intervention, we make it through security unscathed (perhaps everyone took pity on us? Either that or they wanted to stay far, far out of our way). Try to re-assemble everything in my purse, put my shoes on, deal with now-screaming baby and child who has unfortunately spotted "gummy worms!!!" at the airport general store right in front of us.

Note that we have not yet boarded the plane.

2. Nope. No way, no how. Driving wins, no matter how long the trip may be. At least I can STOP somewhere if the kids are losing it in the car. Kind of hard to do that mid-air, flying over Missouri.

3. Surely by now you're thinking, "well, clearly Marisa has this all planned out. She must be all set with a map detailing every possible rest stop, the fastest route back to Wisconsin, and her SUV is already vacuumed, cleaned out and armed with enough toys, coloring books and diapers to get her through an apocalypse." LOL. Not quite. I've managed to throw together two freezer meals for Will and take a brief look at Mapquest.

4. Current plan for tomorrow: sleep in while Will gets up with the kids, and makes coffee for us and Nutella crepes for everyone. Get the house straightened up, laundry under control, begin packing (okay, first I should probably make a list), finish making freezer meals for Will, clean out the car and do a major vacuuming job, pack car with non-perishable food items and games and toys to keep kids out of my damn hair while I'm operating a motor vehicle occupied, make a list of things that need to go in the cooler, give babysitter a brief high five for agreeing kind of last minute to babysit for us while Will and I enjoy some kid-free time, and go out to dinner with the husband. I got this.

5. So, uh, while I'm at it, anyone got any ideas for toys/games for a 1-year old in the car? I can handle Tony. Alessandra...she's my wild card.

6. Despite the craziness I'm anticipating, I'm really looking forward to our time in Wisconsin. A chance to see family and friends again, good restaurants, park dates with my kids and my friends' kids, etc.

7. So....if anyone could offer up a few prayers for a safe and relatively painless trip for us, I would greatly appreciate it. Pretty sure we're going to need all the prayers we can get.

With these two innocent faces, what could possibly go wrong??

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at Conversion Diary!