Storytelling

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The Swagger Wagon or the Slumber Wagon? Sleeping in the 2017 Toyota Sienna with My 16 Month-Old Daughter in the Hotel Parking Lot

While I’m happy that my wife and son slept in the glorious Fairfield Inn & Suites in West Knoxville, it’s true my daughter and I were out in the parking lot, in the shelter of the 2017 Toyota Sienna.

We were halfway to our destination of our Boone, North Carolina for our fall “Road Trip to the Boonies”. Instead of driving the whole 6 hours in one shot, after a full day’s work for us parents and school for our kids, my wife had booked a room for us at a hotel for us to stay so we could finish the other half of the drive the next morning.

But when we arrived at the hotel late last Thursday night, our daughter Holly outright refused to fall asleep. The nice man at the front desk of the hotel even brought us a crib for her to sleep in. But no way, she hasn’t having it.

This is just the stage she is in right now. She doesn’t sleep well in a bed that is not our own.

After 2 and a half hours of my wife and me taking turns trying to get her asleep, I finally went into classic dad mode.

I fumbled in the dark for my boat shoes, my wrinkled plaid shirt, and the keys to the Sienna. I then told my wife, “That’s it. She’s going with me. We’re sleeping in the van tonight.”

It was something like 2:20 AM at this point and we all had to wake up the next morning to finish the rest of our drive. I placed Holly in her car seat, turned Sirius XM to Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, and drove a mile down the road.

She was asleep.

So I drove the mile back to the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn & Suites. I have to say… Being a man who is 5’ 9” and a 160-something pounds definitely has its advantages.

I was able to lay down sideways on the floorboard of the Sienna, wedged in between the two captain’s chairs, with my head towards near the bottom of the 3rd row seat and my feel towards the driver’s seat.

I woke up 2 hours later.

Holly was awake again. So this time, I simply drove around the hotel parking lot a few times. That’s all it took.

This time to get to sleep, I decided to lean back in the recliner seat on the 2nd row captain’s chair next to my daughter. While this did buy me 3 more hours of sleep for not only myself but also Holly, my head kept falling back and forth so I never really got deep sleep. No REM.

I was just glad she was able to fall asleep. Sure, it would have been nice to be inside the hotel, because I was impressed how comforting the place was and how accommodating the staff was.

My son was really excited about the Fairfield frisbee that one of the workers gave him. It’s such a nice place to stay. I totally recommend the Fairfield Inn & Suites in West Knoxville to anyone.

Maybe next time we stay there, my daughter will have outgrown this stage and will fall asleep in the comfortable bed.

Had I thought of it, I should have just folded down the 3rd row seats, with a touch of a button. I could have even borrowed my pillow and blankets from the hotel. It would have been really nice there in the very back of the Sienna.

It’s just that when you’re running on so little sleep, and trying to keep a 16 month-old asleep at the same time, you tend not to think that much into it.

All that matters though, is this: Little Holly slept through the rest of the night.

Sure, the Sienna is quite the swagger wagon. And I’m sure I’ll be talking more about that in future blog posts.

But most importantly, in my case, the Sienna also served as the slumber wagon.

Sleeping baby is priority number one.

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BubbleBum Travel Booster Car Seat: The Most Honest Review on the Internet! (Because It’s from the Perspective of a 1st grader)

As we were preparing for our family’s recent fall “Road Trip to the Boonies” in the 2017 Toyota Sienna, I received an email from the folks at BubbleBum, asking me if I’d be interested in testing out their inflatable travel booster car seat. My response: “Sure, if you can send it to me before our family leaves for Boone, North Carolina next week…”

It arrived in time, which means I now get to present you with the most honest review on the Internet, for the BubbleBum travel booster car seat.

Here’s why I say that. I treated this like a somewhat secret scientific experiment with my 1st grader son, Jack. I wanted to stand back and just see how he naturally responded to the BubbleBum.

He had already established he wanted the 3rd row seat to himself. So the night before we left, I placed his regular booster seat in the left seat and the BubbleBum on the right seat.

When we loaded up in the Sienna the next morning, he immediately asked, “Daddy, can I sit in my new seat?”

So already, through the process of natural selection, he chose the BubbleBum.

For the 6 hour road trip from Spring Hill, Tennessee to Boone, North Carolina, Jack sat in the BubbleBum.

But for the trip back home, I had him sit in his regular booster seat.

Obviously, you see where I’m going with this…

Once we got home, I asked him, “So Jack, which seat did you like better?”

His simple, all-telling response: “The new one.”

I then asked for details. “Why did you like the new one better?”

His answer, “I don’t know. I just did.”

So there you go. My son can’t tell you why he liked the BubbleBum booster seat better. He just did.

And as I’ve already mentioned, he naturally choose to sit in it first.

He liked it. He really liked it.

If you’re interested in learning more about the BubbleBum travel booster seat, you can check out their website here.

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Dear Jack: Your 1st Soccer Game as a 1st Grader

6 years, 9 months.

Dear Jack,

Now that the summer has come to an end, so have violin lessons. And you decided you wanted to go straight into playing soccer now that the school year has begun.  It helps that you and your best friend Duncan, from your Kindergarten class last year, were able to get on the same soccer team.

So this past Saturday, our family drove out to the YMCA field in Spring Hill and watched you place your first game. It was amazing to see the difference, compared to when you played soccer 2 years ago in Pre-K.

You actually chase and kick the ball now! Wow!

And not just you, but all the other kids actually play the game too. Two years ago, it wasn’t this way at all. Back then, it was just a bunch of almost 5 year-olds standing on the field, looking at the feet in the grass.

But now, there’s actually something for your parents to watch you and your teammates do!

You actually gave Mommy and me a reason to keep yelling, “Go Jack! Kick it!” I felt like a legitimate soccer dad.

This was your sister Holly’s first time getting to see a soccer game. Since her skin is so fair, and since there was no shade, Mommy had me stand up and block the sun, casting a shadow on Holly as she watched the game from Mommy’s chair.

I definitely saw a little bit of irony in that; as if I were a big guy, which I am not. Oh well, the plan worked anyway. By the end of the game, your sister wasn’t quite as pink she would have been otherwise.

We enjoyed watching you play your first soccer game as a 1st grader.

Plus, I love the fact you’re getting to not only burn off all that energy you have on Saturday mornings, but also you’re getting to use your brain.

The game is pretty simple, though; for a bunch of 1st graders. Really, the main thing is just knowing which way to kick the ball. That’s all you really have to worry about right now.

Love,

Daddy

 

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We are Taking a Luxurious 2017 Toyota Sienna “Swagger Wagon” for Our Family’s Fall Road Trip to Boone, North Carolina

Ah, the life of a daddy blogger… to have a brand new decked-out vehicle delivered to me whenever our family goes on a road trip. It’s pretty awesome, actually. I love getting to share the stories that present themselves, as my wife and I (ambitiously) travel across the South with a now 1st grader and a 16 month-old.

This makes the first year our family will not be travelling to California. Instead, 2017 is a year of smaller road trips for us.

Back in May, we traveled to Destin, Florida in the 2017 Toyota Prius.

Then in July, we took a fun little trip to Louisville, Kentucky (and saw dinosaurs) in the 2017 Toyota 4Runner.

Our next upcoming event will be our fall road trip to Boone, North Carolina. We will be sharing a cabin with two of my wife’s siblings and their families. It’s going to be a long drive there and back, but we’ve got the right vehicle for it.

The 2017 Toyota Sienna “Swagger Wagon” that was delivered to me feels like a luxurious spacecraft. Our whole family is psyched!

My wife is excited because of how spacious the cabin is and how the captain’s chairs, in the 2nd row where she’ll be sitting next to our young daughter, are full recliners.

Our son is thrilled because he will be able to watch DVDs during the trip, as he loves taking up the 3rd row for himself.

I’m confident our little girl is going to love the Sienna on account of being able to be so close and accessible to her Mommy sitting next to her.

And as for me?

I like knowing that as the captain of our voyage, as I listen to Jimmy Buffet’s Radio Margaritaville on Channel 24 on SiriusXM up in the front row, my family is going to be comfortable and entertained in the middle and back rows.

Could a 36 year-old husband and father be more excited about taking his family on a 6 hour road trip to a cabin in North Carolina, in a 2017 Toyota Sienna “Swagger Wagon”?

I submit that he can not.

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The “No Such Thing as a Crazy Baby Name” Theory

People are giving their babies weird names these days. We all know this. It is an epidemic.

Openly, we don’t acknowledge it. But privately, among friends, we talk about it.

It’s a release for us. It’s confirms that we are not the crazy ones.

Right now, you’re probably already thinking of 2 or 3 weird names you know that other people have recently named their kids.

But here’s the thing. We just have to be okay with it.

Because that peculiar baby name is an expression of that parent’s identity and their perception of their own creativity.

And sure enough, you could have this same conversation with someone who named their kid something obscure like, Cheezeburger Rex, and that parent would instantly agree with you that other parents name their kids stupid names.

That parent of Cheezeburger Rex (which let’s assume is a girl’s name just to make this scenario more believable for a crazy name) would predictably say something like this:

“I know, right!? I know this one mom who named her son Spikey Purple. I feel so sorry for that kid!”

So maybe, in theory, the rest of us “normal parents” should assume that we are the ones who named our kids strange names?

I call this the “No Such Thing as a Crazy Baby Name” theory.

It’s inspired by one time when a guy told me, “There’s no such thing as a stupid tattoo.”

I could easily argue that it might not be the best decision to get a Chester the Cheetah neck tattoo. But if that guy embraced the tattoo as part of his identity, making it a way to express himself; to him, it’s not a stupid tattoo. Instead, he’s proud of it.

Similarly, it’s this way with baby names too.

So the next time I hear a parent proudly tell me that their newborn son’s name is “Dracula Titus” or their daughter’s name is “Intelligence Martin”, I know how I’m going to respond:

“That is the perfect name! It’s so creative, too. But that makes sense, because you’ve always been such a creative person. Well congratulations! (He/she) is so adorable!”

By doing so, I am able to give that parent confirmation that they chose a name that accurately reflects their own identity as the parent.

Their identity; not mine, not yours.

And, for better or for worse, the identity of their child, as well.