Monday Ang asked if I had any advice on how to take her three kids (ages 14 to 6 I think) on a 1,500 mile car trip. First off I'd like to suggest Carbonite. It's a simple procedure really with only temporary side effects (the biggest one being blindness). With all three kids frozen, you could rent a U-Haul trailer, load them up, and they'd never know they were traveling. Really, it's perfect. It's the only way we travel.
In reality, traveling with kids always sends a shiver of fear down my spine. We have no DVD player, only one of the kids reads alone, two of the four are rather volatile when confined for long periods, and I'm often alone when we travel.
One thing I do is write packing lists. Long lists detailing everything that must go. I start a week or so ahead & jot down whatever I think of. It helps avoid leaving...oh...say diapers behind.
I also pack a bag for each kid for the car. Since my kids are much younger than Ang's, the bags hold a few books & some small toys (Happy Meal toys are great & if they get lost, it's no biggie). This trip, I think I'm going to get each kid a small plastic shoe box to hold their gear. MIL got each of the big kids a mini Magna Doodle. I picked up a small box of colored pencils for each kid (crayons can melt in a hot car) & we have blank note pads & activity pads.
I also pack zip-loc bags with snacks for the trip. Each kid gets a bag of Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, and Pretzels and a pack of fruit snacks (but all are kept with me until time to eat them or they'd be gone before we got down our driveway). Cooler with juice boxes & sippy cups is also a must.
We have a CD wallet with kids music in it. They can't listen to the Backyardigans the entire trip, but the CD's do help especially when they're getting tired.
For Ang's brood, I'd like to suggest books on CD. Husband can't stand to listen to them, but the kids & I love them. One year we listened to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe on the way to QM's house. This one is great...it's a "radio drama" type instead of just being read straight out. You can download them onto the kids iPods if everyone doesn't want to listen.
And if you want to unplug for a bit (which I'm pretty sure most parents do) try a travel game. The Ungame is great for fostering discussions. There was another game I stumbled across on Amazon.com last week that I really wanted, but it's way over the kids heads. I cannot find it now for the life of me, but it was just questions like: Would you rather wear a bucket on your foot or bottles on all the fingers of one hand for a year? No, wait, I found it!! Here's the link.
Old movies (or new ones they've never seen, but I like classics) are great for capturing attention. If your kids are like mine, the movies they've seen 800 times don't hold their attention very long.
And since you're going so very far...toss in a box with a baseball or football, a few jump ropes, Frisbee, bubbles, anything to get them up and moving when you stop for a break. We stop at the same rest stop every trip to QM's. The kids are marched in to use the bathroom, then we go out in the picnic area & run!! They have to get up & move a lot. Stretch the legs, get the blood flowing, you know the drill. That way when we get back in for the last leg (and the hardest leg...Nashville in rush hour) all I have to do is pass out snacks & drinks & they're all ready to do.
But my best advice of all would be to pray. We pray together in the van before we leave the drive-way on any long trip. The kids each say a prayer & hear me ask God for safe travel. It helps us all.
2 comments:
Don't forget the pencil sharpener.
Already planned for that, QM. I've even got a nifty one that catches the shavings in a little cup to be dumped when it's full (every 10 minutes or so if I let the FarmHands do it themselves....which I do not).
Reminds me of the time I tried to sharpen my pinky conviced I'd be able to write with it. Turns out, only if I wanted to write in my own blood. Think I was 4 or 5 at the time.
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