Traveling

Our son is proving to be a remarkable traveler. In the last two weeks, we have traveled to see both sets of granparents. It takes us about 11 hours to get to my folks in Florida and about 10 hours to get to Matt's parents in Kentucky. I don't want to take anything for granted or jinx anything, but Tobin does so well. He's always been good at entertaining himself in general. He'll often leave Matt or me when we're playing with something like the blocks and go find something he considers more entertaining, like pushing a laundry basket full of clean, unfolded clothes and pausing to climb into and out of the basket a few times. The same is pretty true in the car. We don't have anything fancy like a DVD player. Only CDs, the iPod (on which Dad has created a Tobin playlist), Sirius radio (okay, maybe that's kinda fancy, but it's more for us than Tobin), and books. And Tobin is entertained by the most ordinary things. On our most recent trip home from Kentucky, T amused himself for quite a while with an empty water bottle, a plastic spoon, and a straw. He would insert the spoon and straw into the bottle and them dump them out. Occasionally I would be called upon to hold the water bottle steady or to pick up a fallen spoon and/or straw (cued by an "uh oh"). Here's a picture I took with my cell phone during said activity:


I tend to think Tobin does best when I'm driving and Matt sits in the back with him. We've been able to drive rather long stretches, especially when I'm driving: sometimes as many as 4 hours without stopping. For one thing, Matt is more entertaining than me in general. :) And I think Tobin is more likely to want me to hold him when I'm just sitting there right beside him. It's not that he doesn't want Matt to pick him up, but more about the relationships we've developed with him as parents. Mama is the primary nurturer. Dad is the primary playmate and, I would contend, teacher.

Tobin was also pretty much perfect when I had to fly alone with him to Kentucky (Matt had driven up a couple of days before with Hannah). He slept for the entire flight and only displayed a little crankiness when I had to wake him to get off the plane.

Tobin's good-natured traveling is really so symbolic of his general attitude towards life. He's a happy kid, who takes most things in stride. And we're so thankful for him.