We had a great Christmas vacation. The boys love Christmas, of course, and we got to visit with family we hadn't seen in a while (or at all, in the case of Ben and Christopher's baby cousin, Catherine). The travel even went well. The long drive to North Carolina and the shorter drive to Pennsylvania were uneventful both weather-wise and stir-crazy-kids-in-the-backseat-wise.

Mostly.

With about three hours left in our two-day trip home from North Carolina, Kari gave Christopher his regular medication in the form of a small chewable tablet.

Heaven knows why, maybe it was just a little bit too quiet in the back seat, but a minute or tow later it occurred to Kari to ask, "Christopher, have you taken your pill yet?"

"No," was the sheepish reply.

Now, Christopher is generally good about taking his meds, so Kari's rejoinder was somewhat incredulous: "Well?! Where is your pill?"

"In my nose."

"What??!!"

"Right here," he said, pointing to a place between his eyes.

I immediately pulled the car over into a small church parking lot, got out, circled around to Christopher's side of the car, opened the back door, and, peering up Christopher's nostril, called out to Kari like a surgeon to a nurse, "Tweezers!"

Kari, already on top of the situation, smacked the tweezers into the palm of my hand and the next thirty seconds or so were tense as I tried to extricate the slippery white tablet without shoving it deeper in. Finally, I resorted to what should have been Plan A in the first place and called to Kari, "Kleenex!"

Three blows and out it popped. Kari and I were nearly in unison: "Now pick it up and eat it!"

Ten seconds later we were back on the road, a minimal impact on the trip's overall miles-per-hour average.