Lessons Learned: Road Trip Edition

1. Driving 900 miles with three young children doesn’t have to be a miserable experience. At one point last weekend, the baby was asleep in her carseat (a small miracle), the kids were watching a DVD (yet the van was silent, because they were using their wireless headphones), I was reading blogs and sending e-mails on my laptop (thanks to my husband's fabulous Verizon card) and Corey was listening to his iPod. Iowa has never been so enjoyable.

2. If you follow the advice of my sage readers and pack a few small gifts for your kids to open on the trip, the phrase “Can we open another present now?” will overtake “Are we there yet?” as the most repeated and dreaded phrase of the drive.

3. Bring a mix of healthy snacks and junk food to eat in the car. My husband preferred the baby carrots and pretzels. My kids preferred the gummy peach rings and Pringles. Different strokes for different folks.

4. Don't let any members of your family consume liquids during the drive. Especially the ones who have an insatiable thirst for Starbucks coupled with the bladder the size of a small puppy.

5. Noggin and Nick Jr. have scads of free, printable road trip sheets. My kids loved the Dora’s Colorful Car Bingo and the Backyardigans Color by Number.


6. Color Wonder markers really are the coolest thing to be invented since Post-It Notes.

7. It is possible for a six-year-old to lose a tooth while you are hurtling down I-35. (For those of you counting -- which would be my Mom and my sister -- that’s the sixth tooth Natalie lost since last November.) Here's the new smile, minutes after the tooth came out after coming into contact with a pretzel.


8. Being the creative type, I immediately stuck a magnet on the tooth so Natalie could play with it on a cookie sheet. ... No, not really.

9. There is only one Chick-fil-A restaurant between Minneapolis and Kansas City, and it’s in the food court of a beautiful Des Moines mall. Guess where we stopped for lunch?


10. Teyla can sit in a high chair now, and she enjoys conversing with small stuffed dogs.


11. I have the cutest nephews on the planet. (Jordan is 5 months; Silas is one year.)




12. A hotel swimming pool is the only thing necessary for a successful trip in the eyes of a child. (I remember feeling that way when I was a kid, too.)




13. I love weddings.


14. I really love my family of origin. This was the first time we had all been together in about a year.


15. My extended family rocks. I didn’t grow up with grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins living down the road. We usually only saw our extended family once or twice a year. The plus side of that kind of isolation is a very close-knit nuclear family. The negative side is I didn’t really get to know my cousins until now. Which is too bad. Because they are hysterical.


16. My daughter is a dancing machine. Apparently, all the dancing urges in my body which were repressed due to years of growing up Baptist were passed on to her. She danced nonstop once the DJs started the music. (Many thanks to my cousin Courtney for being her partner most of the night.)


17. Payback is sweet. (Also known as: Don't mock your wife, because she is the controller of of the camera.)


18. Seeing the new crops of cousins together makes any road trip worth it.