We had a world-wind trip to Yakima, Washington this weekend for a very meaningful Family Reunion. It was lots of fun to see, meet and put faces and names together on my husband's paternal side of the family. It was, however, a creative trip with four children in the car for a full 24 hours (round trip). On the way there we borrowed a friends Mi-Fi jet pack. Thanks to the GOOD Lord! So it allowed the boys to watch Net Flix on their I-Pads and play games. Our littlest one was done with our trip on about hour 6.5. So a little screaming occurred, but we got through it. We just had to turn up the 80's hair band rock and roll I downloaded on my I-pod, and put the pedal down. I actually had to hold on to the little handles by the window and duck behind my sunglasses to survive my husband's road rage and speedy driving...but that's a whole other story.
Our trip home was a tad different. I realized my error in re-charging some of our techo gadgets-about 2.5 seconds into my husband accelerating onto the highway. Even though I had spent a small fortune on all the various 12 volt adapters, converters, and plug-in galore, there's always something missing. I have yet to figure out what that 'missing' thing was to make everything function properly, but most importantly it's what I did find-a packet of M & M's. The boys had a great opportunity to count trees-my idea (they finally rounded up to several million), semi's and look at nature when their 2% charged techno gadgets failed them, but it wasn't as easy for our one year old. Hence out comes the M & M's.
It's amazing how two small bags of chocolate filled bliss can instanteously stop screaming, creates great entertainment even fills the gaps in a hungry tummy. What more could you ask for? Therefore I made those two bags last 12 hours. Needless to say she was amped up on sugar until about midnight the night we arrived home, but eh-it worked for the car. M & M's to the rescue!
I have to be honest. It's not the first time M & M's have come to my rescue. One blustery winter day in December of 2006 I had a two and a half and one year old. While desperately trying to wrap Christmas gifts and get them in the mail, my little guys were just simply bored and into everything. I was finally to my whits end. I was getting nothing accomplished and had been rolling like that for days. And then I saw it...the brown bag illuminated itself on our rough-sawn log table my husband made. It glistened as an answer to prayer....M & M's!
In slow motion I ripped a small opening in the bag's corner. Walked over to the center of our cozy living room and pulled the bag's corner with vigor! Plop..plop..plop...sploosh! All the M & M's, of a three pound bag, cascaded to the floor. Perfect! "Here you go boys," I called. "Have fun!" They dove on them like ants on a picnic. Their cheeks looked like squirrels packing acorns in for the winter. Their eyes were large and round watching my every move-wondering when I might change my mind on the whole thing. But I had no intention to, it was 20 minutes of solid entertainment for them and I got Christmas 'to do's' 'to done'! When I've mentioned this story to some folks their eyes get big and ask if the boys got sick. Unfortunately at the time, I never even thought of them becoming ill. I was totally in my momentary trance of complete self gratification in actually getting something accomplished . Horrible I know, but honest. They didn't get sick, just for the record. M & M's to the rescue!