The Rules of Traveling with Kids

     As of Friday, school is officially out in Austin, Texas, so this post is for my friends who are about to embark on the yearly trek to Grandma and Grandpa’s. 

     Please take note: Taking a trip with your children as is not a vacation.  The Mother Board defines a vacation as removal from your regular responsibilities for the sheer effort of enjoying yourself.  If you take your children with you, the only thing from which you are vacating is your own home.  A trip with your kids is just life in an unusual place.  This, too, can have great value, but a spade is a spade.

     So, what is the objective of this excursion?  It must be decided before implementing the route and timetable.  The overall objective for me is to reach the grandparents' house safely and with as little stress as possible.  If dad is coming, too, one must acknowledge that this is also a race to beat the time of every other trip.  Plan accordingly.

     I actually LIKE planning road trips.  I do it as an escape from folding laundry.  I hate folding laundry.  I can sort it and wash it and get it in the dryer without anxiety, but once that buzzer sounds, the dread washes over me and my arms get tired thinking about having to fold all of that hot, mismatched, faintly stained, fifty-percent blend.  If I use the excuse that I am waiting for it to cool, that puts it off for a while, but if I wait too long, then I have to deal with the wrinkle factor.  I digress.

    

  I have been hauling my kids around the country to see my scattered family since their infancy and have figured out a few helpful tips to maintain the Mama Bubble. 

Packing

     Road trips are fun.  I don’t really drive from Austin to North Carolina.  There are multiple trips within the trip: Vicksburg to Meridian to ride the carousel, Meridian to Dreamland Bar-B-Que on Jug Factory Road in Tuscaloosa for the ribs, etc… All of the legs are about two and a half to three hours long, with potty stops at Cracker Barrel or Starbuck’s in between, and a lukewarm pool at the end of the day.  But after dragging four kids’ suitcases, my suitcase, the electric cooler, and swim bag into a new hotel every night, I had to find another way.

     First, no one gets their own suitcase.  If I take four days to drive from Austin to North Carolina, I have three stops: Tyler the first night, Vicksburg the second, and Dillard, GA on the third.  That requires three carry-on size bags, plus the “every night bag” which holds everyone’s pajamas, swimsuits, and toiletries, and the “final stop” bag for everything else.

     The Tyler bag needs appropriate clothing for the drive from Tyler to Vicksburg.  We like to stop and buy peaches in Ruston, LA, tour the Vicksburg National Military Park (they shoot off a canon every hour), and have dinner by the pool at the Bed and Breakfast.  I pack everything for every person for that one day into one bag and write TYLER on the luggage tag.  I repeat the process for the other cities along the route, so I have to bring only one carry-on bag, the “every night bag,” and the cooler into the hotel.  Everything else stays in the car.  We put the dirty clothes from the day before into that  night's carry-on to keep them separate from the clean clothes and as a bonus, no one loses anything.  Line up the carry-on bags in order in the car to avoid excessive digging.

     Do not forget paper towels, baby wipes, and an old towel.  Years ago, when I had only a three-year-old and an infant, I was between Memphis and Nashville when my oldest erupted.  NEVER give little ones an entire bag of Cheetos and expect good things to happen.  I pulled off the highway into a decrepit Texaco in…ready?  Bucksnort, Tennessee.  Seriously, I couldn’t make that name up.  From then on, there has ALWAYS been an old “barf towel” in the car when we travel.  If someone is going to be sick, a towel can handle the volume I know, gross and it can be thrown away.  We end up using it as a picnic blanket most of the time.

     Coolers (especially the electric ones--our Coleman cooler/heater has surpassed all expectations) are essential.  Road food is expensive and makes me fat.  I load our electric cooler with cherries, carrot sticks, celery sticks, apple slices, and lemonade.  The kids gripe, but by the time we arrive in NC, everything is eaten.  I bring baggies for leftovers at restaurants and stick that food in the cooler for when the person decides that they are hungry.  After years of hearing someone complain about the crumbs in their seat, I refuse to bring chips or anything that crumbles into the car.  It’s heartless, but effective. 

Entertainment

     Once the car’s originally installed DVD player died, we bought personal DVD players (one for each row in the car) and splitters for the headphones.  I decide which movie is going to be played.  Again, heartless, but if I handed them the stack of movies, they would fight over which one to watch as if it was an activity.  Everyone gets a new pair of different-colored headphones at the beginning of the trip; again, we avoid arguments.  The only drawback to allowing them to wear headphones is when someone in the front seat (me) needs the attention of a kid in the back when there is a baby asleep somewhere in the car.       

     Once, on the way to Gulf Shores, both my little ones were asleep in the middle seats, but I desperately needed something from the back.  After frantically waving my arm for my big girls to see and failing to get their attention, I finally tossed the cap off of my water bottle over my shoulder at them and hit one of them in the chest.  Bingo!  A new attention-getter was born.  Right before we left one year, my sister presented me with the best gift ever—an entire gallon-size bag of water bottle caps!

     Goodwill and Half-Price Books have kid-appropriate audio books on CD for just a few dollars.  My son became completely addicted to them on a trip a few years ago, so we start searching for new ones weeks in advance of leaving.  Now that he is older, he gets the entire bench seat in the back of the car to himself for his books, toy soldiers, and Pokemon cards. 

Rules of the Road

     Children should be separated, especially if there are three girl children and one boy child.  If they are to be packed in right next to each other like sardines, do not attempt a drive of more than one and a half hours per leg and have Dad fly to meet you.  Period.   If there is adequate space, put a pillow between the children to provide a barrier.  If they like each other, this barrier can be used as a table for cards, games, or a shared video player.

     Children have to stop every two and a half to three hours.  Don’t try to push it.  The whining and fighting will only escalate, causing more stress to you and every other person over the age of twelve. 

What NOT to eat on the Road

     Coke makes children pee.  Never give your kids soft drinks in the car.  Coke in the car translates into:

1.      Having to make an extra restroom stop for the consumer of the beverage

2.      A sticky spill that sits until the car is completely unloaded, because it has dribbled down the seat between a backpack and the cooler carefully wedged under his or her feet

3.      A hyper kid

     Candy.  Again, hyper kids are distracting kids.  Incidentally,  a warning about consuming sugar-free gummy bears: never before has gastrointestinal distress ever been SO distressful, resulting in frequent stops in unauthorized bathrooms (i.e. anywhere other than a Cracker Barrel or Starbucks).  Just say "NO."

     Engaged children do not argue with each other and tired children are quiet.  This protects the Mama from distraction, keeping everyone alive.  Tools are Once they figure them out, kids love maps.  If I hear an argument about to ensue, I quickly ask where we are and what the next town is or if there is a state park coming up.  Everyone grabs their map and in a few seconds, the argument is forgotten until the next time they are bored. 

     Every time we stop, the children must have a hopping race into the restaurant.  If they refuse to comply, the winner gets two prizes.  The prize is something like getting to hold the DVD player in their lap, while everyone else has to crane their necks.  On particularly long hauls, we will pull over at a rest stop and have a Chinese Fire Drill of three laps, with each kid ending up in another seat.  The world looks different from someone else’s point of view.  They can run sprints on the grassy areas, too.  They feel like they look ridiculous, but I remind them that no one knows them and it is better to be tired than twitchy.  In the car, they have been known to take a small object with some weight and do arm lifts or circles to tire out their muscles.

     If there are no adult males in the car, the trip does not have to be a race to the front of the line.  Stopping for peaches or to see the largest fire hydrant in America gives an opportunity to see that people in other parts of the country are just like us or not just like us.  Seeing the world outside the windows of the car and off of the interstate affords God the opportunity to teach us, so that we may teach our kiddos.

     We walked into Prejean's in Lafayette to see a very elderly man sitting at a table.  My oldest smiled at him and he returned the smile to reveal a pleasant disposition and only a few worn teeth left in his mouth.   I saw her suppress her surprise and move on with her meal.  Intrigued, I wanted to see what she was thinking.  What I hoped for her to think was that he, just like her, started out with teeth and that his life had not afforded him the luxury of good dental genes or dental care.  I wanted her to think about how she would feel if she did not have teeth and how he was braver than we are to venture out into a world of judgemental people to enjoy his life.  .

     "What did you think about that man's teeth?" I asked her.

     "Gross."  Want to guess what we discussed from Lafayette to Gulf Shores?

     We will never know which direction our childrens' minds are headed if we don't take the time to ask.  A bright turquoise house in Fort Morgan, Alabama can spark a conversation about favorite or worst house colors, leading to architectural styles, leading to lifestyles.  Pleasant interaction with new people builds friendliness and better communication skills.  Amiable grandchildren tend to result in ecstatic grandparents.  There is a treasure available from our experiences on the road.  Don't let the dread defy the delight.