Tips for travel

For those of you not familiar with traveling with a small child, I suggest this easy experiment:
1. Go to four or five yard sales
2. Buy everything at all of them
3. Cram the recently purchased items in your car.
4. Head on your way
I am not sure how something so small as a child can require so much stuff. I remember the first time we traveled after our daughter was born. Our Ford Explorer was filled for a two-day trip to Atlanta. There was a stroller, a portable crib, a second stroller (just in case), another portable crib, a portable playpen, that toy with the flashing lights, that toy with the shiny wheel and roughly 65,000 diapers, as the possibility of your child contracting dysentery had somehow snuck into your sleep-deprived brain.
We also took three huge suitcases of clothes. Of course, for some parents that is necessary, as some babies, such as our daughter, throw up for the sheer sport of it.
As the kids gets older, I am glad to report that the amount of stuff we travel with has diminished greatly. There are numerous reasons for this:
1. As children get older, they usually stop expelling disgusting things at mind-blowing rates. This is a very nice stage to reach, almost as nice as the “can blow their own nose” stage.
2. It doesn’t take long for parents not to care very much about their clothing. Not that we resort to donning burlap sacks or anything, but you can be sure that it didn’t take much for me not to care about the Shoulder of Drool.
3. You realize that strollers the size of forklifts don’t always have to go. I am fairly certain that most umbrella strollers are purchased, taken on a trip and then abandoned before returning home. My wife and I even took to not taking strollers if we were going somewhere we could rent them. (Hint: Two kids? Get two strollers. NEVER get suckered into the double. Tired kid + tired kid + double stroller = Someone getting kicked, pinched, bitten, ejected from the stroller, etc.)
But the best improvement we made in traveling with kids is adding movies in the car so that they stare hypnotically at Shrek through four states. I have heard people comment numerous times how “we didn’t have DVD players when WE were kids, and we used to take road trips – eight of us in a tiny clown car with no AC – and drive to Brazil.” Yes, you are a trooper. And I am pretty sure that if I got into a time machine and took a DVD player to your parents just before one of these trips, they would say, “So, let me get this straight, Future Man – This little screen opens up, and the kids can just watch cartoons on the whole drive to Brazil? And they won’t ... talk? And they might even fall asleep? Wow, the future really is a wonderful place.” Or they might be kinda freaked out by me showing up in my future outfit and handing strange technologies to them. I don’t know your parents.
We first added the moving pictures to our vehicle when we took a fantastic drive from Florida to South Carolina – eight hours – with a little background music I like to call “Child Screaming So Loud Cars Were Pulling Over Thinking It Was a Police Siren.” Finally, we simply gave in and let her drive.
Ha! Kidding. But for the next trip, I took a small TV we have in our kitchen and fastened it to the console with bungee cords. I got a little converter so that we could plug it into the car. Our next trip: Five hours of Elmo on constant repeat. And it was beautiful.
Eventually, we upgraded to one of those VCR-TV units that hangs from the back of the seat. That was good for a while, until someone learned that little toes could reach it and mess with the buttons.
By the time Parker was old enough to care about watching something, we had bought one of those little DVD players that we could just sit on the console. This was much nicer than the original TV because I didn’t have something the size of a cinder block strapped in next to me.
We have since added a van, and it has the DVD player built into the car. And I think that’s a more important purchase than seat belts. For what it’s worth, I have heard quite a few movies that I have never seen. I can quote “Cars” for you. Never seen it. I saw about four seconds of it when SOMEBODY in the car suggested I move my seat back from the fully reclined position, despite the fact that (a) she was supposed to be asleep and (b) it was a very straight and empty road. And to keep harmony in the car, my wife gave each of the kids a little DVD holder, and they take turns picking the movie. If we can just figure out a way to agree on who picks the first movie, we’ll be fine.
Again, I know plenty of you think those dadgum kids today with their spoiled ways and their movies in cars.
But really, what is the difference? We all had diversions when we were on road trips. Just because ours were a little lamer than watching “The Incredibles,” it doesn’t mean they’re spoiled.
It means they just may not ever know the joy of finally – FINALLY!!! – seeing a Hawaii license plate.