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Last month, we carpooled with a friend and her children to meet a group of four other families for a quick (but crazy) weekend trip to the Florida Keys. Thank goodness for the invention of the minivan...we just put four car seats in the Honda Odyssey, strapped the kids in, and away we went. We all had a wonderful time, but wow...you should have seen those car seats when we got back! Imagine the coagulated mess...apple juice, chocolate milk, mushed M&Ms, cookies, crackers, chips...the list goes on and on. Combine all that with the sand, ocean water and tar from the beach, and we had a serious mess to clean up. Oh, and did we mention the projectile vomiting incident that spanned across the entire second row?

The Daily Kool family does a lot of driving. In fact, between work, school and enrichment activities for the kids, it often seems as if we practically live in our car. By the end of the week, our poor Saturn looks like a bomb has hit it...snacks, juice boxes, papers and toys are strewn all over the place. We've seen people recoil from the shock, shake their heads in wonder or, if they're parents, simply nod in commiseration at the mess of our car....yep, it can be pretty embarrassing! So, Fridays have now become the official "car cleaning" day in our household, and everyone has a job. No one ever complains...except whoever is responsible for window cleaning. The fingerprints and dog snot (Pepper loves taking rides in the car) are not such a big deal. The windshield, however, is another matter altogether. Our car has a pretty deep slope in the front, requiring us to drum up our best contortionist skills to clean it deep down. We admit it, our flexibility is quite pathetic...thus, so are our windshields.

Sunday, our two boys decided to surprise us with a delicious breakfast in bed...a bowl of cereal is the extent of their culinary talents. As we were listening to them bustle about downstairs (yes, we know everything that goes on in our house), we had a debate as to who would spill milk all over the floor...yep, it was the seven year old! Poor things...they were so upset! Independence is always so important to little ones, but let's face it...those gallon jugs of milk are heavy! After we dried the kids tears and cleaned up the mess, we all sat down together for a family discussion...the thought was wonderful, but maybe next time they should surprise just one of us and recruit the other to help. Milk containers are just not designed with kids in mind.