This beautiful exchange

For the past few days, I’ve been working on getting a sleeping routine down for Lucy. Thankfully, she seems to be taking to it pretty well. Today is the first day that we’re attempting scheduled naps. Wish us luck.

My mother is the queen of routine. Of course, being a single mom of two young children, she had to do something in order to keep her sanity. Her form of routine was not a strict time schedule, though we did have one, but more of a way of doing things.

One of my favorite routines from growing up is how we did our road trips. We used to drive to Houston, Texas every summer to visit my grandparents for a couple of weeks. My mom planned our snacks, drinks and meals for the trip. We always had a thermos with a pump for water, we each had our own glass. And, there was always small butter containers filled with skittles, m & m’s, sunflower seeds, and baby carrots. For lunch, we would always pack sandwiches made with pita pockets because they had less crumbs. And, then we would stop for dinner. We rarely strayed from this menu.

When we had to stop for gas, we each had our own job to do. Mom would always pump the gas and Derek and I would trade off and on with throwing away the trash or cleaning the bugs off of the windshield.

And, we always, ALWAYS had towels on the seats to protect them from crumbs, spills, wear and tear. It didn’t feel like vacation if the seats were bare! This is especially one routine that I continue to practice. Whenever Tony and I have made long road trips in the car, I put towels on the seats. Don’t think he wasn’t impressed with this. He was, and, now he’s a believer, too.