Weekend travel

The Rowe family took a quick trip down to my mom's house for part of the weekend, which was fun for the girls, although the car rides were a bit longer than usual - and offered less in-car entertainment than usual. In a nutshell, the CD/DVD player ran out of juice about 10 minutes after popping in our first CD, we hit an enormous traffic jam on the way down, and got a flat tire about 15 minutes into the drive home, leaving us with extra driving time and no electronic distraction. Consequently, we had to be more creative in our methods to keep the girls from getting too restless, which led to some interesting conversations along the way. Such as:

JULIA: Why are there no sidewalks on the highway?
ME: A highway is not really a safe place for people to walk or run, so there's no need for sidewalks since there aren't any people out using them.
JULIA: Yeah, because I think if people get too close to the cars, they'll get burned by the smoke!
ME: Well, there's not really smoke coming out of cars. It's not like a rocket ship. It's more that the cars on the highway drive very, very fast, so it wouldn't really be safe for people to be out walking around with the cars speeding by.
JULIA: No, I think people would get burned if they went too close to a car because the smoke is too hot.
ME: Honey, cars don't have smoke coming from them.
JULIA: Yes they do!
ME: They do? Where do you see smoke?
JULIA: The smoke that comes from the BACK of the car!

Late into the drive, Madeleine started to get fussy, so I suggested Julia sing to her:

JULIA: Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky, twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.
MADELEINE: immediately stops fussing.
ME: Great singing! How about "Ram Sam Sam?"
JULIA: A ram sam sam, a ram sam sam, goolie goolie goolie goolie goolie ram sam sam. A raffi! A raffi! Goolie goolie goolie goolie goolie ram sam sam.
ME: Good job! Now can you sing "Once Upon a Dream?"
JULIA: I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream... Mama, you're forcing me to sing a LOT of songs to Madeleine.

I then launched into a (probably overly) lengthy definition of forcing and explained that I was simply suggesting she sing to Madeleine, since it was calming her down, and that I was just looking for her to be our backseat helper, but that it was her choice whether she sang or not, and that I did not appreciate her accusing me of forcing her to sing the songs. I guess my speech must have really affected her, because she immediately launched into a deeply enthusiastic, heartfelt rendition of "Schoolbuses."

Here are a few pictures from the visit: