The Best Years of Our Lives

Notes from the road, written after our first day (blogger locked me out of the blog last night and I couldn't post these then):

• OK, this was only a day, and it only occasionally felt like a year, but I lost count of how many times Curious Girl and I listened to "The Best Years..." from the Shrek soundtrack. I figured if she was happy, I was happy. And we were both happy. Shrek had some darn fine driving music.
  
• CG does have an ability to entertain herself. We didn't even play music for the first 2 hours of the drive--she was very busy talking to the cats, singing to herself, and doing Important Things on her Dora the Explorer lap desk I found at a used bookstore.
• The trip was really lots of fun, except for the last 20 minutes of whiny wondering if we were at the hotel yet, and the 20 minutes of tears associated with The Tragic Accident of Beloved Baby Blankie. She made a tiny cut in the blanket when she was cutting strips of paper. I think it's repairable.
• CG gave the cats awards (foam stickers on their cat carriers) because they were so good in the car. She also made up a game involving stickers and points for spotting cars ("Mama! look on the other side of the road. There are a lot of cars there. I know you can find a red one. You can!"). Keeping track of my points, stickers, and eligibility for prizes she was designing took up a lot of time back there in the rear of the car.
• Really, it was the valium. I shudder to think what the drive would be like without the cats on valium. The cats are now taking up most of the king-sized bed in our hotel room (this sociability also due to the 1/2 dose of valium I gave them earlier this evening).
• I had to adjudicate one argument between Curious Girl and Baby Sis, but eventually, Baby Sis helped CG with her coloring homework and all was fine. At the hotel, I met Belle in the elevator, and we magically got transported to Belle's castle to sleep. CG never goes anywhere without imagination.
• We went swimming in the hotel pool when we got here. There was a little girl watching us swim, and she exclaimed to CG, "You are a beautiful mermaid! I know you are! You're a mermaid!" CG is quite delightful in water, it is true.
• We at lunch at the Restaurant of Ronald McD. I told CG she designate one day of our trip for such a meal, and she was pretty darn happy about it. (me, I realized that eating a fil3t o' f!sh sandwich once every 20 years is too frequent.) But for dinner, she picked Japanese, and we had sushi and udon soup.
• All our stuff is on the truck. Actually two trucks, as the ridiculously large truck the movers brought didn't hold all our stuff. And this after we have downsized! Ridiculous.
• Younger cat is seriously picking on Elder (Very Aged) Cat. That is no fun.
  
• At the dinner restaurant, there was a fountain. CG wanted a penny, but all I had were quarters, and I didn't want to sacrifice quarters for the fountain. "Have an imaginary penny," I said. She demurred, and I sadly thought that reality was crashing her fantasy world. "I can throw it?" she asked, though, reconsidering. "Imaginary pennies can make real wishes. Take this imaginary penny and throw it." Off she went, and came back somewhat outraged: "I made a wish and it didn't come!" What had she wished for? "I wished for Mommy to be here, and she didn't come!" I said wishes don't always come true right away, but we'll see Mommy soon. Just a few more days.

Now I'm visiting friends, and will take the weekend to relax and let CG get some energy out (while Politica toils on the new house, which is getting our stuff delivered in the morning. yikes!)