Day 26.

I love going on car rides. It doesn't matter where we end up or what we do, the drive always brings something unexpected and fun.  I love going on car rides (notice I didn't say driving... I let my husband do that on our trips!). I feel like the like a little puppy, hanging my head out the window, wagging my tongue. (Of course sometimes I get a little car sick on curvy back roads and actually do need to stick my head out the window for a second, but even if I didn't feel sick, that would be me.) I love going on car rides for so many reasons...I love seeing this beautiful country. I love discovering hidden treasures with my husband and children. I love taking scenic pictures. And you know what I really love? I love how relaxing it is (of course, when it's not raining or snowing, because if that's the case, I am a freak about that... I swear, ever since I had kids, I get super nervous with weather conditions while driving, I honestly feel it would be in my family's best interest if I were slightly medicated during bad weather condition driving...) Anyway... as I was saying, I love how relaxing it is... I have a comfy pillow and blanket. I'm sitting next to my husband. I have my travel coffee mug. I have Bon Jovi or Queen on the CD player. And, most importantly, I have all of my children in one place, rather 'confined'. :) Because when you are driving down the road at 55 miles per hour, there's no where to go.  Because they aren't going anywhere...I can almost, kinda relax. We're just driving. And singing. And laughing. And being a family. And I am very fortunate. All 3 of my kids love to travel. And they are, generally, very well behaved on car trips. We traveled cross country last summer... over 6,000 miles, with a few 16 hour driving days... and they were amazing! I had my 'bag of tricks' - little dollar store items that I would bring out ever few hours to give them something new and exciting to do. Oh, and did I mention the portable DVD player?... a must! But I have to say, today we drove 9 hours. And we didn't turn the DVD player on until hour number 8.25. That's not too bad!!  Joey loves to read. He read over half of a Harry Potter book today. Ally loves to draw, sing, play with her stuffed animals, sleep and eat goldfish. Vicki loves to look out the window. She loves to look at her cookbooks. And she loves to listen to our Blondie CD. :)  I was just thinking today what a great place we are in with our family for road trips... And how far we have come. No diapers on the drive. And not too many stops needed along the way... probably more for mommy and daddy than the kids, courtesy of our travel mugs 'o coffee. :P 

There was a time, when we were using a very specific potty training method with Vicki, that made driving any distances difficult and rather time consuming. (Like most parents of potty training kids age..)We were timer training her, and if she didn't have to pee in the potty when we stopped, then we had to set a timer and stop every 10 minutes until she peed. For all you parents out there.... you know, it's not all that convenient all the time. In fact, kids know THE minute to ask to pee, when there is NO place to stop... And when we were timer training Vicki, sometimes we would have to stop at a fast food restaurant, and she would always want something to eat there too, and when we couldn't eat at every place, she was none too happy. One particularly bad session, we had to stop every 10 minutes for an hour and a half... I shudder at the pain of those days... She does really well now, and with her current aversion to peeing, it makes it easier to plow through and not stop. :) It also helps to have leather seats, especially when we were just beginning the potty training.

It's kind of strange... with as 'routine' as Vicki is and as strict as she wants to follow her schedule, she does amazingly well on trips. In fact, she loves them... And if we had unlimited time and money, you betcha that's what we'd do with the majority of our time. Now it's not all hearts and flowers, she does have difficulties... Some trips more than others... I remember a few years ago, when we were taking her to lots of doctors, we went to stay in a hotel for a night... and i think she associated that hotel hallway with a doctor's office hallway - they looked similar and had the same kind of feel to them. And they both had lots of doors and an elevator. Yes, that one was particularly trying. Once we got her into the hotel room, she was much better... but it was hard to convince her we weren't going to a doctor. There have also been times when we are driving rather late at night, and she is tired. And she sees that it's dark outside and we already ate our dinner, so naturally it's time for pajamas and bed. And when she makes up her mind that it's time for bed, then, it's time for bed. 'Bed. Bed. Bed time. Bed time, bed time, bed time, yay bed time! Vicki bed. Vicki pajamas. Vicki bed.' And then she will start yelling and crying. On a bad day, she will cry for upwards of an hour. :(

And her home bed time routine is very specific. Mommy and Daddy say goodnight and then we leave... I've never touched on all of the safety measure we've taken to ensure that Vicki is safe at night, but we have lots and lots in place. We've done so many things to her room, from security on her windows, to locks on her closet door, to remounting all of the electrical outlets at the top of her walls, to installing cameras, to installing a dimmer switch for her light (outside of her room...because she won't sleep without turning her light switch on.... we got the dimmer switch so the light wouldn't be so glaring since she was determined to keep the switch on at night..)  Anyway, when we are at a hotel, we can't just say goodnight and close the door.... we all stay in the same room. And we don't have all of the security measures in place. Vicki doesn't sleep much at night, in general. She's up a lot talking and singing and just laying. Which, although we don't like, isn't something that usually affects the rest of the family at home because all of our doors are shut. But when all 5 of us are in one room, after a few hours of talking and yelling and playing, it gets kind of old... And one particular incident stays in my mind... she was up yelling for so long. She was really quite inconsolable. We needed the other kids to sleep, and for that matter people in the rooms next to us... I ended up taking her for a walk outside at 3 in the morning and we ended up sitting in the car for quite a while, and she finally relaxed in her car seat. That was a long night. So we always wonder what the nights will bring when we are not in our own beds. My husband usually sleeps with her. And it's odd... we have an easier time when we are staying in hotels during little family trips than we do when we stay at our family's houses when we are visiting. And 'visiting' family isn't always easy... Someone, if not both of us, have to go to bed with her. And even though, as I think I posted last night, we can never switch off watching Vicki for a second, it is so much harder anywhere than our house.

Gosh, this ended up being a long post... sorry!!! But I had one more thing I wanted to say about car rides. Almost a year ago, we were coming home from Busch Gardens. We had had an amazing day. Everyone had a great time. And then, as the kids were getting ready to watch a movie, something happened. Something upset Vicki beyond belief. And she couldn't verbalize it. She was so upset. I've never sen her this upset in the car before. She tried to pull the DVD player off the back of my husband's seat back. She almost got it completely off and she was ready to launch it. We had to pull over, stop the car and remove the DVD player. Like I said before, sometimes when she is so far into her tantrum, it's very hard to get her back. And this one in the car was super scary. I was so glad my husband was there with us. After we removed the DVD player, it was a challenge to keep the van door shut because Vicki kept pushing the door open button before we could engage the lock system. She was thrashing around. She got her body so stiff, we couldn't get her seat belt back on her. I ended up hopping in the back and sitting on the floor for the 2 hour trip. We finally got her seat belt back on her but I had to hug her and keep her from unlatching her seat belt. She is strong. And she was so upset. And it was so hard. I was kneeling over her, hugging her so tight. Every time I tried to let her go, she would lunge to undo her seat belt and keep trying to unlock the doors. (I've had this happen 2x before when it was just me and her in the van...where she would unhook her belt and try to stand up and get out of the van. When I am driving, I would reach around to try to grab onto any part of her that I could. Even thought I knew she wasn't supposed to be able to open the doors while the car was in drive, it still freaked me out!) I remember holding her. I remember crying. I remember Joey and Ally in the back row of seats. Joey had to look away and he was sobbing so hard i thought he was going to have a full on asthma attack. I tried to reassure them that Vicki would be okay. But through the tears, it was hard. And Joey kept telling me that he was so scared that Vicki would end up hurting me, not meaning to, but he didn't want to see her hurt me, or hurt herself in the process... Those two hours were pure torture. For every single person in that car. No one should ever have to experience that. I felt helpless. It took so long to finally calm Vicki down. I felt so helpless. My babies in the backseat needed comforted too, but I had to keep my arms around Vicki. I felt so helpless, my butt had fallen asleep in the position I was in, my arms were sore, and I was emotionally drained. It pretty much sucked. And to this day, I still can't figure out what set the chain of events off... It hasn't happened to that extent since then, but when Vicki tries to get out of her seat, or if she starts yelling in the car, I can feel the atmosphere begin to change and I know everyone is thinking about that day... and hoping we don't ever have to go there again.

But you know where we will go again? Anywhere in the car. Autism does not hold our family hostage in our house. We get out there and enjoy the world around us. Engage in the world around us. And live. And love. And experiene the world around us.

I love going on car rides. And so does Vicki.