Thank You, Morrissey

Sean and I were both very apprehensive about our car ride up to Boston.  Owen has been a House Baby for the first four months of his life precisely because of his bad behavior in the car.  He screams in his bucket seat pretty much non-stop.  The idea of being in a car for six hours with a screaming baby had us alternately wringing our hands, cursing our fate, and thinking maybe it would be a good idea to have Christmas in Abington this year.

But we bit the bullet and set off with bulldogge and baby.  Dorothy rode shotgun:

She did an excellent job, too, although she spent most of the trip sitting up with her head leaning in a woebegone fashion against the seat back.  She did not get sick and she didn't need her meds, which was nice.  We did have a bad parenting moment in which we stopped at a rest stop and didn't notice that Dorothy had jumped out of the car with us and was moseying around the parking lot on her own.  Eeek!  

On the way back, we got stuck in terrible traffic, so the six hour ride became a nine hour ride.  I'm happy to report that although I did a lot of whining myself, Owen did a great job both ways.  He was stuck in his bucket seat for nine hours with only one brief outing, slept most of the time and only cried for a bit.

And for that we have Morrissey and The Smiths to thank.  Every time Owen began to cry and get fussy, we turned on a Smiths cd and Owen was asleep in about two minutes flat.  I don't know why he found "William It Was Really Nothing" so lulling, but nonetheless he did.  And now Sean and I are both even more fond of The Smiths than we were to begin with.