Best Money Ever Spent... Well, all I can say is, if you have not yet invested in a portable DVD player for your long car trips with small children, get thee to Walmart some store that sells electronics and get one! We made it today in one piece (I drove so long yesterday, and I did pose the question in the car that perhaps I am a bit of a control freak, that I woke up last night with aching shoulders) after waking early in Columbus. We hit the snooze and I finally suggested that we watch a morning news program to wake up. Well, wouldn't ya know they had closed all the schools in anticipation of a blizzard that hadn't started yet. That got us moving! We were quickly dressed and on the road and drove through snow for a couple of hours (I told Dereck later that the reason I had driven was very similar to what Jackie Kennedy told the secret service at the beach: the children's safety here is MY responsibility-- not that Dereck can't drive in snow-- I just felt a personal obligation to be behind the wheel-- is the jury in yet about that control issue?) and then came out of it, hit sunny skies and blue skies and warm temperatures-- I took off my sweater at lunchtime. Christian kept remarking on the scenery today as we came through the mountains. He was mightily impressed. He said at one point, "That looks like Mount Everest!" But, Lucy, he and Tommy squabbled like an old married couple. At one point, they were arguing the finer points of the extended version of the Return of the King, and I shut the movie off and they did not notice for almost ten minutes. Sam, of course, is my mellow dude. How many movies did they watch and I listen to? And do I really want to listen to the same ones all the way home? Hmm... there are still more shopping days before Christmas, Santa Claus... The first day was fine too-- my stomach can't take road food all that well anymore, so we stopped for a "real" dinner at Ruby Tuesday's (where? Indianapolis? No, Dayton) (by the way, today I counted more than ten cities in Ohio where I'd never want to live-- no offense, Stacey and Bill) and still had trouble getting little stomachs to eat. I had given Tommy a pen to play with and he lost it (of course!), so I had him crawl under the table to retrieve it (I get attached to my pens) and he came up with it (it is black) proclaiming, "I can see like a bat at night!" To which Sam and Dereck and I all responded at once, in a jarbled heap, "Bats don't see, they use sonar." And Christian's lone voice piped thoughtfully, and intelligibly, a millisecond later: "Bats use echolocation."