“The Big Trip….”

“The Big Trip….” It all started with our attempted to get our 4 year old excited about being in the car for 3 ½ days straight. We began with the high, overly enthusiastic voice, then we added a little hand clapping and some jumping up and down, and finally just a bit of exaggerated “happy” smiles while we said, “we’re going on a Big Trip and it‘s going to be sooooo fun!”  I’ve found that you can make anything exciting if you take the right approach (Noe still get a thrilled expression every time the door person at Costco draws him a face instead of just marking a line through our reciept).  We continued for the next few weeks to talk about “The Big Trip” with the same mode of a attack.  We bought special treats and activities just for “The Big Trip” and we put them in a special place that we could see and anticipate getting to use them.  We talked about seeing Aunt Christy and Uncle Nate and Lily, Uncle Dan and Aunty Dawn, Sawyer and Riley. (We talked Uncle Dan eating bugs* and asking if we could eat some bugs when we are with them). The last few days he has awoke each morning asking if today was the day we were going on The Big Trip, or if it was tomorrow or even tomorrow tomorrow (that would be the day after tomorrow). Finally, the day came and as we climbed into the car Noe began asking about when he could play with Sawyer and Riley and Lily. It was at that moment that we realized that “The Big Trip” that WE prepared him for was not necessarily a trip that began with 3 days in the car. Thankfully Noak is a great traveler and so far he has had a very good time.

*Uncle Dan and son Sawyer were having some boy time while sister and mom were at a Girl Scouts campout. They were eating crawdads when Sawyer asked “We eatin’ bugs, Dad?” If you can’t figure that out, well, they live in Mississippi and the cockroaches there are HUGE!