Sleepy Hamburger

What stinks about this picture is that it's staged. It's a reenactment which doesn't even come close to being as adorable as the real thing.

(Notice his crazy car seat hair)

The last day of our Thanksgiving trip to California involved waking up at 5:45 and heading to The Happiest Place on Earth. My inlaws--who were also in San Diego--treated us to a day at the park. We needed to leave in the late afternoon because we were spending the night in the St. George area which is approximately seven hours from Anaheim. You know, with kids. Who take awhile to hoist themselves out of the car, use the bathroom, and get back in.

Needless to say, we were all pretty exhausted by the time we actually hit the road--especially the kids. All three of the boys fell asleep pretty quick into our drive--thankfully, I was driving--and so I pushed on to Baker before stopping for dinner. It was a very late meal and it was difficult to rouse The Rock Star from his slumber. We finally managed.

We filled up on gas, went to the bathroom, and bought dinner. As we drove off toward Vegas, Garrett was talking up a storm. "You need to be quiet and eat," we finally told him. Little did we know, the chatter was the only thing keeping him awake. Suddenly, it was very very quiet. I turned on the light and spun around in my seat--thankfully, Troy was now driving. My oldest son was sound asleep with his hamburger in his hand. He looked exactly like he does in the picture except that in real time his arm was bent at the elbow and he was somehow holding his hamburger up in the air. His head was also at a more uncomfortable angle.

Without having the presence of mind to take a picture, I woke him up and encouraged him to eat. He whined feebly, "I'm too tired to eat." We'd bought him onion rings--one of his favorite things--but had told him he needed to eat his burger first. Hearing the exhaustion in his voice I went back on our prior rule and asked him if he wanted the onion rings instead. He did.

Two onion rings later, he was nodding off again. I kept trying to get him to talk to me and eat a few more rings but it was mostly a futile attempt to get food into the kid. When he crashed back into sleep I think he'd had a third of a burger and about four small onion rings.

But he'd sure had a blast at Disneyland that day.

(We staged this photo after arriving at my aunt's house around midnight.)