in ONE day...

17 hours, from our driveway in Wilmore to Mee-maw's house in Nocona, all in ONE day. My kids were AMAZING. We were in Ryan's pick-up, so they spent 14+ of those hours in the back seat of a super cab Chevy truck. Yipes.
Truly I am in awe of how well they did. I kept a few Mommy-tricks up my sleeve, saving them for the inevitable melt-downs and misery of the last few hours. Never needed them. We did finally have to stop for a late dinner because I got cranky, but the kids were chipper right up to 11pm when we stopped for the night at my grandmother's house. WAY TO GO MUNCHKINS! :)

Athan mostly kept himself distracted with books, and making up conversations between his stuffed animals that we brought along for company. We listened to some great free podcasts Ryan got for them - readings of classic kid stories, like Beatrix Potter tales and such.

Morgan the Methodical, however, showed off her skills. She made up a game. The rules probably only make sense if you're five (or if you were there to watch the various evolutions of this game, perhaps). Mostly it involved Morgan assigning to one person a number and a color. Their "turn" consisted in finding exactly the assigned number of objects that were the assigned color. Then she would somehow record our results on a grid she had drawn out. She would color in squares for "right" answers, and draw the "no" sign (as in the circle-n-slash you'd see for "no smoking") through squares for the "wrong" answers. I'm still not clear on what exactly what "right" or "wrong" (though I do remember Ryan got one "no" sign for doing something that "in this game only girls can do"), nor do I know whether or not the game had any way to be won or lost or even finished. But it was great. Systematic, organized, layered, and consistent over the course of several hours, off and on.

So now we turn around and head home in a few days. Who knows what they'll entertain us with on the way home? :)