Friday, August 1, 2008

Traveling with children

We've spent large portions of the past two days in the car, on our way to a family reunion/my sister's wedding. I remember when we were kids driving cross country from Utah to Washington D.C. and back again, among other trips, in a big van with a bed made up in back. We would climb around, sleep, play...I don't recall wearing a seat belt very often. Now my kids have to be buckled up in car seats or booster seats all the time. Lily and Luke have actually been remarkably patient; we went to the library on Wednesday and checked out a number of children's book-and-tape sets, and they have been listening to those. Esther has been doing a lot of crying. I don't know what to do with a 7-month old who is just tired of being stuck in a car seat--and of course is too little to understand why we leave her there! It took us 12 hours yesterday to make a trip that could have been done in 6--if we didn't have to keep stopping. On the plus side, one of our stops was at Primm Nevada, which has a lot of factory outlet stores. I'd never actually shopped there before, but the kids needed a chance to stretch there legs so we went in to check things out. I got two nice skirts for $10 each, including one that I can wear for this wedding. My sister's colors are chocolate, lime and linen, and I needed something that wouldn't clash! Now I just need to find a top to go with it.
We have a couple more hours of driving to do today--we're taking a break right now at my grandparent's place. And we have to do this whole trip in reverse in 10 days. So if anyone has any tips let me know!

1 comment:

Kelley said...

Oh, I can so commiserate. I made the trip from Missouri to Utah by myself when the boys were 5, 3, and 7 months. That was NOT fun. I wish I had some wonderful ideas for you, but really it was just an endurance run. I hope you have a delightful time at the wedding.