We made it!

We arrived safely to my parents house about 10:30 last night. Sam was such a trooper. I was terrified pretty much all week that she was going to be a crabby, screaming mess the whole time but she wasn't, she did great. Which had very little to do with the portable DVD player that I broke down and bought yesterday thinking that it would be the perfect distraction for her in the car. It works great for my sister and her girls when they travel so I was just convinced that it would be the perfect fix. Now don't get me wrong it probably did help, she watched a little and was certainly distracted by it at times. But I thought she would just stare at it and be quiet the WHOLE time, which was not the case. She isn't much of a TV watcher normally so I am not sure why I thought she would suddenly be interested, but I did.
I have been convinced for years as we drove past vans filled with the glow of colorful tvs that MY children would not travel like that. They would travel the way that I did; looking out the window, playing stupid license plate games, reading, coloring, and of course fighting and whining with siblings. I don't know why but I have just had an aversion to using the TV as a distraction mode in the car; they miss all the scenery if they are staring at a screen. But my fear of eight hours of screaming Sam took over and forced me to forget my convinctions (clearly it was not that strong of a convinction!). So I went and bought a DVD player, it is even PINK! HA!
The funniest part of the whole thing is that I LOVED having it in the car!! I watched the baby Eisnstein movies and Robots and it was great. Totally made the time go faster. So, my conclusion from the whole thing is 1) don't have convictions about silly things that don't matter, and 2) for anyone out there that has long trips in their future with kids in the car BUY A DVD PLAYER...doesn't even have to be for them, just make your spouse drive, sit back and enjoy a movie!