After careful consideration, our family decided to hit the road this summer for a trip that would take 18 hours both ways. Last year we drove to Colorado, which was 14 hours; however, my son was six months old and I knew he would sleep most of the way. We also drove through the night, and after my mom and husband nearly fell asleep at the wheel I decided it was going to be day driving this summer. However, now my daughter was 4 and going through a "whiny" stage and my son is non-stop climbing, falling, eating and pooping 18 month old. I must admit that I was a little worried, yet, I'm happy to say that we all survived.
I have always loved a good road trip. It's thrilling for me to pack the bags even though they will soon be dirty laundry, buy snacks that will only be eaten, organize the entertainment only to be disheveled and hit the road. I always scour the internet in search of ideas to keep the kids happy, but when it came down to it I realized I knew them best and followed my instincts. For my daughter I packed two coloring books and a plastic cup with crayons to fit in her cup holder, a magnetic dress-up doll, Leap Frog tag and books and a Look and Find book. For my son we brought his truck book, magnetic shapes, a mini Magna Doodle and a coloring book. I also purchased some inexpensive clip boards for each of them to hold their coloring sheets in place--fabulous! My mom and I had gone in on a travel DVD player so we brought that along with some classic DVD's. And much to my surprise they hardly watched the movies. They did excellent on their first real road trip. A little fuss here and there but overall we were proud parents. And, when things did get a little hairy, we turned on some fun music and they had a little dance party in their car seats....very cute!
The snack bag was also packed for a small army. My husband and I took a trip to Trader Joe's (alone) and bought juice boxes (which if you don't want them to squirt all over the place stick the box in a plastic cup), popcorn with olive oil and salt, sesame sticks, trail mix, cookies, snack mix, crackers and the trusty fruit snacks in case all else failed. I felt like these were healthy and filling and they loved all of them. The first day I also brought a picnic lunch in a cooler. Sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwiches, Trader Joe's version of Cheetos, grapes and carrots. As lunch time was approaching we conveniently were heading into St. Louis. My husband and I thought we might as well stop and see the arch. We had a picnic in the park surrounding it and it was really a lot of fun. The kids were able to run around and soak in the views.
Surviving a road trip really wasn't as hard as I thought. My worries were useless, as always. It's now encouraging for me to know that we can take our kids places. Some of my favorite vacations were road trips and this has been moved to the top of my list. Despite a semi nearly crushing our car on the way home the trip was perfect.
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