The Ugly

The last part to my long drawn out vacation story.  Our drive home turned ugly at the end.  Overall being in the car for 22 hours with 3 young kids wasn't to bad.  The drive out was good, the drive home was not as smooth. 
We left the Outer Banks after breakfast, close to 9 am.  During the day the drive was great.  We stopped at some of the same rest stops that we hit on the way into Outer Banks.  We were able to stretch and eat lunch and dinner. The boys napped on opposite schedules.  We played a hand full of movies.  The peaceful drive soon cames to an end as the sun set.  Payton and Hayley passed out in the far backseat.  Cooper took a later nap after dinner so Cohen fell asleep first for bed.  Cooper was the only one awake and was getting tired.  He couldn't get comfortable and was getting cranky and started crying.  The back and forth game started now.
We couldn't do much to console him while in his car seat.  Mitch and I couldn't decide which seat was more trying the driver or the passenger.  As the night went on and got later it was hard to drive but it was equally difficult to fetch pacifier and lovey for the boys.  They would alternate on who was sleeping and who was having a melt down.  I think who ever was asleep never would fall into a deep sleep and then would be affected by who was crying.  Who ever was throwing a fit would eventually tire out and fall asleep but then the other one would start in. This went on through the night.  We even pulled over outside of St. Louis because we were so tired and was going to take a nap so we could continue driving.  We got the boys out of their car seat and each held one and put our seats back to take a short nap thinking they would nap on our chest.  Yeah...right that backfired.  They thought it was play time.  We just wanted to make it home so when that didn't work we put them back in their seats so we could get back on the road.  That really set them off. 
We finally arrived home with heavy eyes and headaches by 6 am.  Somehow Payton never woke up the entire night.  Listening to someone crying from 8:30 at night until 6 am can make you feel like pulling out all your hair, or just jump out of the moving car.
Once we got home we got them in bed and Cooper only slept for 45 min.  Since we were up we started unpacking the car.  Cohen was up about an hour later. 
That same day why unpacking and tyring to put things back in order, Cohen learned to climb out of the coral gate.  So much for keeping them contained.  I was about in tears since I was so tired and knowing there was no way to keep them out of trouble now.  The gate is officially done, I tried again another day but he didn't forget.  So Mommy doesn't go anywhere without my monkeys right behind me.