The A-List: Traveling with Kids

We are on the road these days, off on our adventure/vacation to the lands where the dinosaurs stomped, so I am a bit off my schedule. Also, I am trying to do this on a smart phone.  Sorry!

Traveling with children in a car can be a huge and horrific hassle, ending with everyone in tears, and parents resorting to strong drinks at the hotel bar.  We all have the best of intentions, at least until we pull out of the driveway.  We have grand plans of playing 'car games' as a family, of singing along with the radio, of stopping at 'out of the way' places just to see the world's largest ball of string.  That stuff usually goes out the window after the first hour.  Even if everyone is excited about that cross-country trip to Disney, there are still going to be difficulties. Whining occurs frequently, as do complaints and general fretting.  Should any sort of delay occur, such as a completely random traffic jam on a two lane road, it can become quite loud in the confines of the car.  

It's inevitable, really.  Kids thrive on consistency and routine, and most travel doesn't involve any of that.  Instead, there's a lot of sitting in the back of a car, strapped in for what can seem like centuries to a kid used to being able to run all day.  When I was a kid, my brother and I spent entire road trips fighting over the territory that was the backseat, tired and whiny about being confined for so long.  I  determined that my son would have a better time while he was strapped in his car seat.  These are my time-tested tips for surviving car trips with children.

This is what most of the roads in Texas are like.

1.  Let them "help".   Give a child a chance to "help", and they are just plain excited.  We let our son 'pack' what he wanted to bring with him on our trip. We gave him a backpack to fill.  We asked if he wanted to bring a pillow.  We ended up having to narrow down what Zane picked out, since the Imaginext Batcave doesn't fit in a backpack, but he got to 'help'.  We also let him pick out the shirts he wanted to bring, and he watched as we packed them in the suitcase.  The point is to let a child feel as though they are part of the action. The more in control a child feels, even if it is just for the little things, the happier they are.  


2.  Bring electronics.  On long car trips, the portable DVD player is your friend.  So is the Game Boy, or the PSP, or the V-Reader.  Some 'experts' decry electronic devices as bad for children.  These people have obviously never been on a long car trip with children.  Driving requires concentration, something impossible to achieve with a whining child in the back seat.  Our first big car trip was five hours of driving; Zane watched an animated movie the entire way, at least until he fell asleep.  This trip, we have an old tablet PC that we've loaded with games that Zane can pick and play as he chooses.  We also brought a V-Reader.   Older kids can use headphones, but I don't recommend those for younger kids, because they have a tendency to turn up the volume way beyond what is recommended for little ears.  Don't forget to bring batteries and the chargers for these electronics, and make sure that you have an adapter so that you can charge them while you are driving. 

3.  Bring extra. No really, bring extra. As much as I would like to say that electronic toys solve all of our travel issues, they do not.  My son is okay playing video games for about thirty minutes at a time.  Then he wants to do something else.  So I brought plenty of other things for him to do.  I brought books.  I brought Lego mini-figures for him to put together. I brought Superman and Batman action figures.  I even brought Brain Quest, and a dry erase board that he can use to practice his letters and numbers, even though he mostly likes to write on his arms.  As soon as Zane became bored with one thing, I threw the next activity into his lap.  Reading a book to him was a little difficult, since he was in the back seat, but we managed.

I  got these at Target in the dollar bins at the front of the store!

4.  Snacks and water.   Kids have their snack preferences, and bringing those snacks along on a long car trip can go a long way toward smoothing over the stress of travel.  I filled up a bag with Zane's favorites, and filled a small cooler with water and juice boxes.  When Zane got a little peckish, I reached behind the seat and grabbed his favorite snack and his favorite drink, and he was content to munch while he checked out the cows and the corn fields. I only brought snacks that did not require extensive cleanup.  Also, if you invest in one of those water bottles that filters the water as you drink it, that will take care of any complaints about the taste of water in other parts of the world.

We did not bring entire boxes of snacks, but you get the idea.

5.  Play breaks.   I know that most parents try to avoid eating a lot of fast foods with their kids.  Most of the food at these places is not very healthy, and we are all doing what we can to get our children to have better eating habits than we did.  On the road, however, my husband and I are not looking for healthy.  Most of those fast food places have places to play.  When we are on the road, we stop at those places so that Zane can let off some steam.  He runs and climbs and slides and works off as much pent-up energy as he can while we eat.  We get his meal to go, because he can eat in the car after he's played himself silly.   


Feel free to add your own tips in the comments, since I am by no means an expert!

Mamakat's: Seven Wonders

Mamakat's Prompt: List your life's Seven Wonders. Describe the most amazing 7 things you've seen with your own two eyes. Okay, but it was hard to narrow it down to just seven.

7. The Sacrament of the Last Supper, Salvador Dali

I am not big on Dali's work; it seems to me that he did a few too many drugs. But I was struck by this painting as I walked through the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. There's just something ethereal about it, like you will reach out to touch it and it will disappear like smoke.

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Tina on Pinterest

6. Castle Neuschwanstein

This is the castle that Disney borrowed for his theme park. If I remember correctly, King Ludwig of Bavaria built this. He was crazy(he really was!), but his castle is breathtaking. He built a couple more, including a castle in the middle of a lake, but this is his masterpiece.

Source: en.wikipedia.org via Tina on Pinterest

5. Washington, D.C.

Forget the politics for a moment. The capital of our country IS history. When I lived there, I spent hours of my free time just exploring. Everywhere you turned, a piece of our past was there. I walked out of a training session, and there was Ford's Theater. I got lost one day, and there was the Octagon House. It used to be that you could just walk into the White House during the Christmas holidays; they had an entire room full of gingerbread houses. I hate that some idiots ruined that for all of us. It would have been great to see the look on my son's face when he saw those houses.

Source: google.com via Tina on Pinterest

4. Statue of David

Yes, I actually got to visit Italy and see this gorgeous work of art. And it is truly beautiful. It's bigger than you might think. I mean the statue. Michelangelo must have tapped into the divine that is in all of us when he created this.

Source: google.com via Tina on Pinterest

3. The World Trade Center

My friend won a trip to New York City, and we got to stand pretty close and just look up. And up. And up. I will never forget the sense of awe that I felt that day. It was a symbol way before it was knocked down.

Source: media-1.web.britannica.com via Tina on Pinterest

2. The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.

My father got his masters degree from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. I went to his graduation, and I got to sit in the cathedral. This is called "America's Catholic Church". Even if you are not the least bit religious, tell me that you wouldn't be awed. I was! And I'm pretty sure that those eyes were following me, too!

Source: nationalshrine.com via Tina on Pinterest

1. And the greatest wonder of all...

My Miracle. He's just plain awesome.

What a trip, Man!

Texas is a big state. It doesn't seem like it most of the time, because the areas that I travel are relatively close in Texas terms, but this state is huge. And San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the nation. (I KNOW!!! I didn't believe it either!) So a quick trip isn't always quick.

We got into the car this past weekend to drive to Hondo, Texas. A friend of ours was having her son's third birthday party there at a corn maze. 55 miles away, normally not even a blink for us. Zane was all excited about going to see his friend, even after playing in his soccer game. We left the soccer game and headed to Hondo.

But then something random happened.

My husband, who always uses GPS, decided to NOT use GPS. Instead, he relied on me. Exhausted, frazzled, had-a-very-bad-week-and-fighting-off-illness me. The person who was not speaking in complete sentences.

That person.

I knew that Hondo is west of San Antonio, heading out Highway 90. In our fair city, the highways have a way of changing numbers right in the middle of everything. For example, 281 becomes 37 at some point, then goes back to being 281. 35 becomes 410...but wait, now it is 181. I think. Confusing, isn't it? Interstate 10, during your trip through San Antonio, mingles with Highway 90. So...I thought that we were supposed to take I-10 West. And that is what we did.

We are cruising along about an hour, into the Hill Country, hitting the city limits of Kerrville, when I realize that we are on the wrong highway. Yes, it took me THAT long to realize we were not where we should be.

And then I had to tell my husband that I had failed miserably as the navigator on this particular mission. Of course he had to give me a hard time about it, because I'm the one who always knows exactly where we are going. Since my husband had already texted the woman having the party to say that we would be at the party, we were committed to getting there.

My husband plugged in his GPS, and though we ended up adding 47 more miles to our trip, we finally found the corn maze. Everyone else at the party was completely exhausted; they'd been through the maze, had the cake, opened the presents, etc. They were just waiting for us. Zane was cranky, because he had fought falling asleep so he could see his friend. And it was hot and dusty. We wandered around. The place had several very old and huge live oak trees that offered some shade. We found some goats to look at, and a tractor to pose on, and a really cool spider web made of rope. We stayed about an hour, then trudged back to the car. I ended up having to carry Zane.



Did I mention that we had ANOTHER birthday party to attend after that? 55 miles in the opposite direction? We did. Another child's birthday party.

At least this party had a horse.

And beer.

Seeing the World

I love to travel. I like to go to new places, see the sights and wander about, mostly because I love history. I love meandering through museums, looking at pieces of the past, and I love going on guided tours, where there is someone who can point out pieces of history that I may have missed.

When I was a kid and my father was stationed in Germany, the whole family would pile in the car and drive to different countries. We didn't have very much money, so we would pack camping gear. We would find a campsite, set up our tent, and go exploring. Even at a young age, I could feel the ancient past calling to me, begging to be discovered. I was, and still am, a history geek. I can remember playing near our campsite in Florence, Italy, and trying to dig up a rock that looked like it might be a statue. When we were in Greece, I got to see Lord Byron's name(if you don't know who that guy is, google him. He was what they called a 'character'.) carved into a column in a temple that overlooked the sea, and I was transported. I even tried to read some of his poetry, which was a pretty big deal for a ten year old.

I want Zane to have the opportunity to discover the world around him. I have seen what becomes of people who never travel anywhere outside a ten mile radius from their home, and poor language skills is only the beginning. I do not want my child's intellectual and cultural growth stunted, so we have begun to take little family trips. It took a bit to convince my husband, who likes his comfortable chair, but he's been great about finding the best hotel rooms. We tell Zane that we are going on an 'adventure', which he seems to like.

What better place to start exploring than our own state? Texas has an extremely rich and varied history, beyond the Alamo. There's a tree in Landa Park in New Braunfels, for instance, that is reported to be over a thousand years old. Fredricksburg has a wildflower farm. The oldest Polish settlement in the United States is in Panna Maria. The field where the Battle of Medina was fought isn't far from here. The 'birthplace' of Billy the Kid is right up Highway 281, as is the former home of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who is famous for picking up a basset hound by the ears and having really cool initials.

Plus, there's an actual Dinosaur State Park!! A park for actual dinosaurs!

That was only half true--there IS a Dinosaur State Park, but it's called that because you can see the footprints of the dinosaurs who passed through the area. My point is that there are a lot of things for us to see as a family right around here. When Zane gets old enough, we can start venturing out of state, and maybe out of the country. Who knows what sorts of adventures we can find?