If you’ve been keeping up with the Drummond family on social media, you probably saw that Alex Drummond and baby Sofia had such a fun weekend visiting ReeRee and Papa (aka Ree Drummond and her husband, Ladd) at the ranch. Although their stay was filled with laughter, playtime, and even an interpretive kitchen dance, the car ride from Dallas to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, was a bit less exciting.
Since Mauricio was on a boys’ trip with his dad and brother over the weekend, Alex decided to pack up the car and make the five-hour trek to Drummond Ranch for the first time since Christmas. But braving the road trip solo turned out to be “quite the journey” for Alex, according to a recent Instagram story. “Sofia and I did the 5-hour road trip SOLO yesterday for the first time in awhileeee,” Alex told her followers in the caption of the clip she posted on Friday. “I was nervous haha, IYKYK roadtripping with toddlers is an adventure!”
In her video, Alex explained that she was wary of the long drive for several reasons. For one, she hasn’t taken that road trip with Sofia and without Mauricio in a long time, and now that Sofia is older, those types of enclosed settings aren’t necessarily fun for an antsy toddler. “She’s just a lot more squirmy these days, and she does not like to sit still,” Alex noted in her Instagram story.
Then, there’s the fact that Alex had to entertain Sofia while steering the car, rather than dividing and conquering with Mauricio on deck. “It’s really hard when it’s just me and her…because when Mauricio and I are together and we’re roadtripping with her, one of us can sit in the back with her and hand her toys, hand her snacks, help keep her entertained, but when it’s just me driving, I can’t do that,” Alex explained.
Alex hoped that Sofia would take a nap for most of the journey, but since Sofia was asleep for only 45 minutes of the five-hour trip, Alex had to figure out how to keep her one-year-old occupied on the fly. “I was playing all these different playlists, trying all these different things,” Alex recalled. “I was passing her back snacks, passing her back water bottles. But the hard thing is that she loves to throw things out of her carseat, and then I’m driving, so I can’t pick it up.”
After a while, Alex decided to surrender and let Sofia cry it out instead of trying to soothe her. But by the end of the trip, when the finish line was in sight, Alex caved and tried her last-ditch effort: her cellphone. “For the last 30 minutes of the drive, I just handed her back my phone, because it was dark out and she was really losing it, and I was like, ‘You know what? We just gotta make it through the last 30 minutes,’” Alex said. “So mom of the year, I passed her back my phone open with Spotify with some of her music that she likes to listen to, and she was like pressing shuffle, and that kept her entertained for the 30 minutes, but woo, that was quite the journey.”
Alex, your patience is admirable!
