It takes about 11 hours to drive to my dad’s house. That’s if you don’t have small people who need to stop frequently. We do have such small people, which meant we spent quite a bit more time on the road. In all that time, though, we only had a handful of whiney moments and not a single full-blown meltdown. I can’t take too much credit for that; we’ve been blessed with two extremely good little travelers. I did, however, do a few things to try to make the trip easier on them.
Slow down
The first was what made the trip longer: Frequent stops. We tried to stop about every three hours. It extended our time on the road by quite a bit, but I think it helped keep the kids (and me) from getting stir-crazy — thus keeping the meltdowns at bay.
Ikea. This was my favorite stop. While Poppy played in the store’s “Smaland” play area, I browsed the cheap Scandinavian goods. It was also the longest stop, which is why it was nixed on the way home.
Rest areas. Some of them have really nice green space where the kids can run about.
Local parks. This takes some research ahead of time, but it’ll give you an opportunity to experience more of a given town than just what’s within half a mile of its exit.
McDonalds. The food is terrible for you, but I think they all have play areas. This isn’t my first choice, but it works in a pinch.
The things we carried
I also put together a “travel kit” for Poppy before we left. I packed the small things in a backpack and pulled them out one at a time on the way up. I wasn’t quite as organized about it on the way home, but she was just as happy so I guess that was OK.
Big pink lapdesk thing. I wanted something she could use to put her coloring books on. I found a few options online that would’ve worked well, but I didn’t want to spend much on it. The little “desk” that we ended up with was $6 at Michael’s.
Small Magnadoodle. She spent lots of time with this, practicing her letters and asking me to draw juice boxes. It has magnets on the back, so I’m going to stick it to the fridge if it ever makes it back into the house.
ColorWonder coloring books & markers. The markers will only color on the ColorWonder paper. Normally I wouldn’t go for such a specialized item, but I thought it would be a good idea in the car. Bored preschooler + markers = trouble.
iPod stocked with audiobooks/stories. I thought this was a brilliant idea. Then I forgot the iPod charger. Poppy did enjoy listening to it before the battery died. StoryNory is a good source for free stories, and AudibleKids has a few free books as well.
Books, books, books. Poppy loves to “read,” so I made sure to stock the car with her favorite books. As long as the book bin was within her reach, she had plenty of reading material to keep her busy.
I wanted Pete to be happy, too, of course, but he’s easier to entertain than Poppy at this stage. We just brought along some of his stuffed animals and toys that would hang from his car seat. With regular stops for diaper changes, food and stretching, he was a mighty happy little traveler.
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