Kid Packs Road Trip Essentials

We’re off to see my parents for a couple of days—the first time we’ve packed for an overnight trip in almost a year. In the intervening ten months, Kina has matured sufficiently to entertain herself in a car (and her parents have matured sufficiently to admit that iPads are useful), though she has also developed a monstrous travel appetite. The Mazda CX-5 is a fairly roomy vehicle, and Google tells me there are 30.9 cubic feet of cargo space in the rear. By my calculations, some 20.9 of our particular cubic feet were fully occupied by snacks, each requested personally by our child. In desperation, we stopped at a bakery on the way out of town, and I swear to god I bought two full paper bags of bread and pastries—an investment to hedge against snack refusal. As it turns out, stuffing your child full of bread is a reasonable way to keep them from wheedling for other sugary treats. The power of gluten!

My Little Pony Is Accidentally Watched

I do not, for the life of me, get this show.

Kid Indicted For Calling Daddy “Stupid”

We do not use that word in our house, and yet somehow she has picked it up. Some days, I think there is horrible knowledge deeply ensconced in the minds of newborns—the word “stupid”, wielded in moments of anger against one’s father, is one such nugget of knowledge. I won’t lay out how we got to the point where she insulted my intelligence, but I will say that she spent three minutes in time-out for it. After a long crying jag with Mommy, she did approach me to apologize. I fully expect to be stupid again in a week.

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