i officiated a wedding  in atlanta this weekend, and in order to save all members of our immediate family from the bird’s car trip conniptions, the monkey and i took off on our first ever adventure as a traveling duo.

the six hour drive, two sleeps in the hotel, and back-to-back wedding festivities were a far cry from the monkey’s usual routine. in order to preserve our collective sanity, i made up a few new traveling rules on the fly.

1. the driver can change out the movies in the car dvd player, but the passenger is in charge of pushing buttons to begin the featured presentation.

2. lollipops, bags of cookies, mentos, baked lays, and other wedding goody bag items are all approved components of the travel meal plan. also, it’s a good thing ketchup counts as a vegetable. thanks, ronald reagan. and p.s. who cares if the three-year-old in question consumes a green ring pop on the way to the rehearsal dinner and arrives with swamp monster teeth?

3. though the $16 ticket price at the center for puppetry arts seems a bit steep, it’s really quite a small price to pay for an hour-long puppet show, a make-your-own-puppet workshop, a gander at some of jim henson’s origional puppets, and free mango iceys on the back lawn.

4. if your handmade stellaluna puppet loses a limb during vigorous museum or restaurant play, you can just tape it back on using excess adhesive found elsewhere on said puppet.

5. wedding venues in parks such as this one come complete with neighboring playgrounds.

it is perfectly acceptable for a wine-toting, cocktail-dress-wearing mom to spend equal amounts of time inside the reception and outside sitting on a decorative boulder next to the orange “curly slide.”

6. bedtimes are later than usual. bathtime is optional. if parent and child fall asleep together on a pull out couch during story time, so be it. if a three-year-old wants to wear his house shoes for an entire day, fine.

7. the rules of the road are certainly not fit for everyday guidance. in fact, over time, they would most certainly lead to rotton teeth and malnutrition. however, in the face of unprecidented one-on-one time with my baby-turned-“big boy,” they afforded us a little glimpse into the kind of fun our future will hold. this is why the next rule is this:

8. we must do things like this again and again!