The real meaning of three-hour car trips

We drove down to Ben's grandma's house for Easter. It was a fun time; but exhausting. It's a three-hour trip in the car each way and the few hours at the house involves a lot of diaper changing and finding food for picky kids to eat and pulling rubber snakes away from kids who are flinging it at their young cousins and reminding certain three-year-olds to please take a break from playing rock paper scissors with the other kids to take a potty break once in a while and stopping Sophie from pulling food directly off of people's plates.

On the way down, about thirty minutes into our trip, Noah said his belly hurt. I glanced in the rearview mirror and immediately knew we were in trouble. Just as I elbowed Ben in the passenger seat and urged him to find something remotely resembling a barf bag, Noah threw up. Ben was able to direct most of it into a random plastic bag he had in his truck, but there was still some collateral damage.

I pulled off onto a side road and told Ben we needed to make a decision. Do we still want to make the remaining two-and-a-half hour drive? Is Noah contagious-sick or is it (more likely) a result of his breakfast of hard-boiled egg, pink & purple yogurt, and cotton candy? If we do decide to keep going, what on earth is Noah going to wear since I don't think it is appropriate to bring the kid into a house full of family while wearing vomit-streaked clothing?


Twenty minutes and a twenty-dollar Wal-Mart run later, Noah had a new outfit and we were on our way.

In the car, we were talking about Easter egg hunts and the Easter Bunny and candy and whatnot. Ben decided to take the opportunity to make sure the kids were thinking about the real meaning of the holiday.

He says, "What is Easter REALLY about?"

Travis exclaims, "Jesus!"

Sophie chimes in, "JEEEsus!!"

Noah whimpers...."I can't say Jesus because I'm too sick....."

Hmmm. Nice try, kid.

Luckily, Noah recovered, and the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, at least as far as bodily fluids go.

While Travis was playing outside with his cousins he slipped into a huge puddle of water and we ended up changing him into the second spare set of clothing that Ben had bought at Wal-Mart after the vomit disaster. Noah melted down because he thought he didn't find enough Easter candy because his Easter bag was three times as big as Travis's so it didn't look nearly as full. Sophie just ate constantly and charmed everyone, and climbed onto Great-Grandma D's lap as we were leaving and told her she loved her.

And that, my friends, is what Easter is all about.