is there anything more makeshift than a family road trip with small children? one minute you are pulling out of your driveway with carefully organized kids’ activities in tow along with deluded dreams of a three-year-old exhibiting the kind of silent focus reserved only for phD students. the next minute (okay, well, more like 15 hours later), you are knee-deep in piles of disintegrated goldfish crackers, and the only things interrupting your gratitude for the bottle of wine waiting for you in the trunk are the countless spin moves required of you to maintain back seat order.

well, now that our drive is behind us and my little bird is safely napping in his pack-n-play in the closet of the beach condo, i can say, as i always do, that the chaotic drive was worth it. especially since we found this playground equivalent of the magic kingdom just outside of jackson, ms: 

given that our usual playground stops involve scaling eight-foot chain-link fences as a family and trespassing on the private property of churches and elementary schools, this one really wowed the kids. they didn’t even seem to mind settling down in the woodchips to eat their supper:

i’d say the real low point of the car-ride was when i gave the kids suckers followed by a roll of toilet paper stolen for entertainment purposes from the previous night’s hotel. i looked back, and the one-year-old had transformed himself into a flailing, sticky mummy. oh well. lesson learned.

now, excuse me while i see about that wine…