Technology!

As a parent, sometimes you start to feel a little sorry for yourself (or at least I do). You know, like those times when you see younger, cooler people with no kids having fun or when you are busy running errands with a whiny kid and you see a retiree taking their time to stroll through the aisles of Target.

On a recent drive back to North Dakota was one of those times. It was just Lindsay and I in the car and not even 30 minutes away from our house, she became irritable and a downright crabass.* I had 9 hours in the car and we couldn't even make it to the western suburbs before the trip was a disaster.

*Sidebar: Not that I blame her. Have you seen the carseats these days? I'm obviously on board with them because of the superb safety, but she may as well be in an enclosed padded box that is harnessed to the backseat. She can't see outside, can't reach for anything and has no one to play with back there.

Anyway, it was at that point I remembered that we had recently purchased a portable DVD player so that she could watch cartoons on long trips. Talk about a godsend. We pulled over, threw in a Nick, Jr. DVD and we were good to go. Even more of a godsend, that DVD had 6 episodes on it and automatically looped back around to the beginning when it ended! Check out this happy camper!

Yes, you read that right. I let her watch 6 episodes in a row and even let it loop back around to the beginning and start over. Judge all you want, but that was a phenomenal drive back to good, ol' ND! Happy kid and momma got to throw on her iPod and listen to P!nk, JT and Rihanna to her heart's content with no whiny interruptions whatsoever!

Honestly, I'm not sure how our parents made it without one of these miracle machines. One less thing for me to feel sorry for myself about. Guess I'm going to have to take my martyr business elsewhere.