Driving

I can sleep anywhere -- it's a blessing or a curse, depending on if you're the pilot and you're expecting me to keep you company/awake -- and I sleep fabulously in the car. I've always been a car sleeper. When I was a kid and we'd go on road trips -- and all of our vacations were road trips to Oregon or LA -- I'd sleep the whooooooole way. It kinda ticked my dad off because he wanted me to soak in the scenery or something.

Scenery is nice, but if I can't touch it? I'd rather sleep.

Now I figured that all babies sleep in the car. I'd heard stories in fact of desperate parents taking their babies for car rides for the sole purpose of getting them to sleep. I kind of figured it was just a given.

But Kiki? Has never been a car sleeper. She has occasionally slept in the car, don't get me wrong. But unless it's right at her nap time and/or she's exhausted, she simply will NOT sleep.

She likes scenery too. And she loves the built-in car seat in the van because it doesn't obstruct her view out the window. And she loves listening to the radio and rocking out as we travel along.

What she doesn't like, it turns out, is slamming doors. Once a car door is slammed, it's game over for a few miles while she screams her lungs out. Now because we have two older kids who slam doors as a matter of course and then look at you blankly when you say, "Stop slamming the doors," because they don't understand the subtle difference between a slamming door and a closing door, car trips with all the kids in tow has become something of a trial.

Hopefully this, too, shall pass.