6 Things To Remember When Taking A Road Trip With Little Ones

     May brings thoughts of summer.  What commitments do we have?  Where do we want to go on vacation?  Who do we want to make sure we see?  These questions remind me of our first family and flying was not appealing.  We decided to load up the family truckster (AKA my wife's SUV) and drive.  When friends asked us what our plans were that summer, and we told them we were taking a 15 day road trip, their only response was, "Man, you're brave!"  I have to say it was a fantastic trip.  Here are some of the things we learned along the way.  Some of them the hard way.
vacation.  My wife and I decided that we were going to take a road trip to see family in New York and Wisconsin.  When you are traveling from Texas, neither state is really on the way to the other.  Our son was turning one that summer, we were celebrating our first anniversary,

1. Plan your trip out!  This was our first long road trip.  We knew our son could handle a couple of hours in the car, but we didn't want to push him to meltdown mode.  I made sure that our longest stretch was not more than 8 hours.  We picked stopping points along the way that we could either see friends/family, or where we might want to just look around. 
2. It's OK to take breaks!  My wife had to continually remind me that we were not in college and could not drive as far as possible stopping just for gas.  When we stopped, we tried to stop at rest stops, state lines, or any place that we could get out, stretch our legs, and let the boy play for a little while.  Now normally, I am one of those road trippers that wants to get where we are going.  After all, that is the point of going on vacation.  My wife helped show me that part of road trip beauty is what happens along the way.  Remember that we planned out our trip ahead of time, so we were able to take an extra 30 minutes or even an hour when we stopped.
3. Make sure you have entertainment!  Looking back, this is one of the things we have started to do differently.  My wife's vehicle has a DVD player.  This was perfect for the trip.  After all, our son was one and loved cartoons.  What I didn't count on is him wanting to watch the same DVD over and over for 15 days.  Movies are great entertainment, but they shouldn't be your only entertainment.  Now that our kids are a little older, we mix things up with music, books, movies, and busy bags.  We also do fun games like I spy, the color game, or a new game the kids make up on the spot.
4. Take a minimalist approach when packing!  I praise my wife at planning for anything we could possibly need.  When we travel, we always have plenty of snacks, appropriate clothes, and toys for the kids.  What we both have learned is that sometimes it is better to buy along the way.  Remember I said that our son was almost one.  One year-olds are typically in diapers, and our was.  I found out that it was much easier to buy diapers along the way than try to pack around a case of diapers.
5. Bigger is not always better!  Like most first-time parents, we had the full travel system that started out with a baby bucket, but as the little guy aged, it became a stroller that could fully recline for naps while we were out and about.  That is great if you are out and about around town; not so much so if you are on a long road trip.  When I packed the car, this was one of the first items I had to load because of its size.  It was also the thing that we needed to take out first at almost every stop.  The instant that I realized this fantastic stroller was too big was when we were in Memphis and visited Graceland.  We had made it three days together, from Houston to Memphis without any meltdown; until, we got to Graceland.  Then it was me having the meltdown, not our little one.  Graceland is where I had to try to fit this amazing travel system stroller on a shuttle bus to go across the street to see where Elvis lived.  I was, "That Guy," that had to make the bus ride inconvenient for others.  The first thing I told my wife when we got off that bus was, "Our next stop is Walmart.  We are getting an umbrella stroller."  Needless to say, that umbrella stroller was the best investment we have ever made on a vacation.  It made it through two kids and many more adventures.
   
6. Most of all, HAVE FUN and ENJOY EACH OTHER!  Too often we are consumed with what we have to do.  We have to make dinner, we have to do homework, we have to go to work, we have to cut the grass, we have to do the laundry, the list goes on and on.  Vacations are a time to focus on each other.  Disconnect from what you have to get done, and focus on what you want to experience.  Kids are only young once.  Help them create memories that they will share for a lifetime.  Who knows, maybe one day they'll say to their family, "I remember taking this same road trip when I was a kid."

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