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Lessons learned from driving halfway across the country with three children:

1. No matter how many times you tell them that we won't arrive at our destination until after dinner time, they will begin asking "Are we close" as soon as breakfast is finished.
2. When you come up with more than three "car games" to entertain them with, they will have cheated their way through them in the first hour to get the prize you were hoping to save until the end of the day.
3. You will remind them a million times to tell you as soon as they know they will have to go potty.  They will still wait until right before it comes out to announce it.  You will be miles away from an exit.  They will do this at least three times each day.
4. You have always held tight to the belief that kids don't need to watch tv in a car.  You will abandon this by lunch time.  And kick yourself for not just letting them zone out on dvds all day.
5. They will always have their noses buried in their games/dvds/fights on the prettiest part of the scenery.  (West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina) But will inevitably be staring out the window at the vast nothingness that is Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana.
6. Each time the youngest finally falls asleep, someone will have to go to the bathroom.  She will never fall back to sleep, but is now really cranky that she was woken up.
7. Although you have supplied them all with a trash bag, paper towels, and wet wipes - they will still throw everything on the floor and wipe their hands on the seats.
8. The only part of the journey they will enjoy is the one minute you are in the tunnel that goes under the water.  This is either at the very end or very beginning of the ride.  The little one will always manage to fall asleep two miles before we get there.
9. Someone is always kicking a seat.  Someone can never reach what they want.  Someone will lose their shoes every time they take them off.
10. You will strongly contemplate leaving them at every third rest stop, but you won't be able to because there's always some sweet old lady who smiles at them and tells them how precious they are.  Of course, that sweet old lady won't pack them into her car, now will she?
11. People will look at you funny when your children are eating a packed lunch in the parking lot of a McDonald's.  They won't care that you tried to stop for an hour, but every single rest area was closed for renovations.  Your youngest won't get the joke when you tell her "This is the closest you will ever get to eating at McDonald's so enjoy it!".

One thousand two hundred fifty six miles.  More than twenty two hours.  Seven states.  Two days.  Millions of dollars in gas money.  Several aspirin.  One bag of jelly beans.  Memories you hope to forget in about eleven months before you start planning to do it all over again. 

*sigh*

The things we do to escape the monotony that is our daily lives.