The story below is from our May/June 2021 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Now that you might brave a vacation again, a few reminders on travel with kids.
It’s been awhile since we’ve traveled freely with nary a care, and you may be feeling so pent up that you’re ready to throw the kids in the car and brave a flight or a car trip of any length, just to put some miles between you and the house you’ve been marinating in for the last year.
We’ve booked a beach house for a week this summer, and I couldn’t be more ready to bust out of Roanoke. But in case you have pandemic-related amnesia about traveling with kids, let’s revisit before we all back out of the driveway this spring and summer, shall we?
After years of trial and error (a lot of error) traveling with four children, I have three rules. Rule one: never let anyone get too hungry. Rule two: Stop while you’re ahead. And rule three: Know when to pull the emergency cord and get the heck out of dodge.
Rule one is easy to execute with a well-planned snack bag. I’ve learned to give each kid their own bag, because passing a box of granola bars to the back seat is just asking for trouble. “What? She took two!” Or, “Last week he had more snacks than me so this time he gets less!” You get the drift. Separate bags. Names in Sharpie marker on a Ziploc gallon-sized number is snack bag nirvana, and go ahead and pat yourself on the back for your organizational and planning skills. Non-melty items are best, and watch the sugar or they’ll be bouncing out of the plane seat, and that is not what you or your fellow passengers want. If this is a pure car trip, give them all the sugar you want, but bring earplugs.
Rule two is a bit tricky, so be gentle with yourself as you readjust to post-lockdown life. You’re probably a bit out of practice, but you know how your mom or dad radar can sense when things are about to head south? A toddler is about to meltdown, the teens are growing increasingly cranky, that kind of thing? Well, the competing instinct that overpowers your parenting good sense is that when you are having a great time, to just keep having a great time until something blows up.
Christy Rippel
These kids are ready to hit the open road.
You think, “This Disney trip is just going so well, everyone is behaving and we’re going to hit every single ride on our list today!” Easy, sister. Cut that list in half, and head to the hotel with energy and enthusiasm to spare. Trust me, you can tackle the other half tomorrow. Or don’t, and hang out by the pool. Remember, the goal was to have a fun family vacation, not manage yet another to-do list.
Rule three is tough, and if you have to invoke it, I feel badly for you because vacation has just come to an untimely end. The last time we exercised the nuclear option was in Washington, D.C., two years ago, during what had promised to be an educational and fun spring break. We were going to take the kids to see the monuments, hang out at the hotel pool and show them where mom and dad used to work when we were much cooler. The drive was a breeze, check-in went smoothly, the weather was gorgeous. Smug comments included, “Did we only stop once on that drive? Things are getting so much easier now that the kids are older. Remember diaper changes on the tailgate?” We laughed, we congratulated ourselves—then disaster struck at 2 a.m.
It went something like this: Rustling sheets, seven-year-old daughter (who was sleeping between my husband and I) moaning, and then, “I don’t feel…”
She lost her lunch. And her dinner. And the entire contents of her snack bag. It was all over me, it was all over the bed, and to make it worse, we were fumbling for the light switch in the dark. We spent a very unpleasant rest of the night and early morning, and the stomach bug showed no sign of abating. My husband and I looked at each other, weary and exhausted.
“If someone else gets it, this is going to get really bad,” said Chris. “We’ll see D.C. another time,” I said, as I began to pack up.
If things seem like they have a pretty good chance of getting worse, it might be best to not try to fake the fun. Get the heck out. Cut the losses and live to vacation another day.
Good luck, and maybe I’ll see you at the rest stop.
The story above is from our May/June 2021 issue. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!