Category: Motherhood Moments

If you’ve ever been trapped in a confined space with screaming children, you know how terrible traveling with kids can be.  Planning ahead can make road trips with tots more fun for both the kids and parents. These seven traveling tips will help keep everyone in your car stay happy.

1. Timing is Everything – Chose your departure time wisely.  When I was young, my parents would load everyone in the car for road trips at the insanely early hour of four am. They were morning people, and we kids would sleep along the way.  Although I can’t bring myself to wake up that early, I do plan my travel times around little g taking a nap on route.  That way there’s one less person for me to entertain while trying to drive.

2. Something Old, Something New – Entertaining kids on long trips is not always easy.  One thing I do is bring a new toy along with us. Even if I just went to the dollar store, or got happy meal toys, the newness of the item is usually enough to hold their attention for a while. Also, if your kid has a favorite toy they can’t live without be sure to bring that as well. Just make sure you bring toys that aren’t messy. No markers or playdoh! This photo is from a trip when I let Big E bring along a styrofoam block he had been playing with.  Needless to say, we both regretted that choice.

3. Technology – I’m a big fan of my Kindle Fire and iphone when it comes to road trips. Kindle Fire has a Kindle Free Time App specifically designed for kids, that has access to tons of books, games and videos. The best part of the app are the parental controls which allow you to set time limits for total screen time. If nothing else, the tots love watching movies on the devices, and I love them not screaming, “I’m bored!”

4. Music – On a recent four hour drive, I was desperate for a new distraction. So, I put on some toddler tunes and I kid you not, for a full hour both Big E and little g listened intently to songs like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “You Are My Sunshine.” Even on short trips around town we often sing together, and it can be even more fun to make singing a game. The SONG game (similar to the board game Encore) makes thinking up new songs a competition. A topic word is chosen, river for example, and teams go back and forth singing songs with that word in it until one team is stumped. Hint: the word LOVE can last forever.

5. Games – Old fashioned car games can always be a good option.  I like the Alphabet game, where you search signs, license plates and billboards for all the letters in the alphabet. Also, I SPY and 20 QUESTIONS can be fun.

6. Food – Don’t forget the snacks! I like to bring some healthy snack options, like fruit and yogurt in a cooler, but that’s not all I bring.  Part of the fun of road trips for me is eating treats along the way. Don’t skimp on the snacks when you’re stuck in the car with tots. Yes, your backseat will be covered with crumbs by the time you reach your destination, but a little vacuuming is better than cranky kids. I also bring water bottles with sippy tops for every family member to use throughout the trip, that way spills are limited.

7. Breaks – Don’t be afraid to stop along the way. I try to plan a twenty minute ‘run around’ time around gas station and food stops. Yes, it will take you longer to get to your destination, but kids need to move around, and parents do too.  One note on bathroom breaks – to limit bathroom breaks make sure everyone uses the facilities before leaving and limit liquid intake to twenty minutes before your next scheduled stop. On the drive home from our last vacation, Big E had to stop three times in one hour so he could pee! Although I was annoyed at having to stop so often, I suppose it was better than cleaning up a backseat soaked in urine.

I hope these tips for tots on road trips is helpful.  Happy Trails and let me know what outdoor adventures you’ve got planned!

One thing I’ve learned in my time as a mom, is that kids make messes. I don’t know about you, but I HATE cleaning up the same mess over and over and over again. Since my tots are the reason for most messes, I try to make them clean up as much as possible. Here are some of my kids favorite Clean Up Games:  

1. Sing the Clean Up Song – Have a special song that you sing or listen to when it’s time to clean up. Ours is well known and goes like this: Clean Up Clean Up Everybody Everywhere, Clean Up Clean Up Everybody Do Your Share.

2. Have a Race – I literally race Big E around my living room, each of us picking up a toy along the way and then racing to put it where it belongs. You can also have a race to see who can get the most toys in the least amount of time.

3. Gobble it Up – With toys like blocks, where there’s lots of pieces, I take a bag or pillowcase, hold it open and pretend it’s a mouth that likes to gobble things up.
Little g and Big E love to drop the toys in, then pull their hand away quickly before the gobbler gets them too.

4. Singing Plinko – Similar to Gobble it Up, Singing Plinko is where you sing one note to a song for each toy dropped into the toy box.  If the tots want to hear Twinkle Twinkle Little Star without stopping after each word, they have to hurry and put more things away.

5. Bubble Machine – For little g’s first birthday I bought her a bubble machine and soon discovered that when left unchecked it left a wet soapy area on my kitchen floor. I decided to use that to my advantage and now put the bubble machine on whenever I mop the floor. Bubbles are soap, right?

6. Dust Buster – This is not a game per se, but you’d be surprised with how much time Big E can spend vacuuming the floor with the handheld vac. He loves machines anyway, and loves to do things by himself so he’ll often look extra messes to vacuum himself. We’ve also turned the dustpan, broom, toilet brush and vacuum attachments into toys to help us clean.

7. Find the Magic Toy – Sometimes I will have Big E search the room for the one magic toy that will make me sing a silly song.  Conveniently the toy is one of the last ones picked up.

8. Hot and Cold – If Big E walks closer to the item I’m thinking of, I tell him he’s getting hotter and hotter until finally when he picks it up.  Conversely, if he walks away from it, he gets colder and colder. He loves finding the secret toy, and I love that he’ll put it away before we play the next round.

9. Have Toys Help – Big E loves construction machines, so if I can find a way for his dump truck or excavator to help put socks in his drawer or toys in his toy box, I do it. Along with this, squirt guns make great watering cans and bathtub rinsers. You’d be surprised how useful some toys can be.

10. I Spy – Almost any tot knows the phrase, “I spy with my little eye…” It’s easy to play this game to choose items that need to be put away. For example: I spy with my little eye something that is blue, has wheels and drives around a track (a car).

11. Basketball – Get a laundry hamper or the toy box and plop it in the middle of the messy room.  Then walk to each toy and throw it into the hamper without moving your feet.

12. A Minute to Win It – In this game each family member must pick up and put away as many items as they can in one minute. We actually use a countdown timer from Scattergories or Catch Phrase because it makes a great countdown sound.

It should also be mentioned that positive reinforcement goes a long way.  Nothing makes Big E help out faster than me telling little g, “You’re such a good helper!”

So try out some of these clean up games for kids, and please let me know if you have any more. And thanks to the moms in my life who taught me some of these games in the first place.

Do you think little g is trying to tell me something? I was making lunch and she went into her room, got a blanket, baby and paci and made herself comfortable on the wood floor of the hallway.

Last Saturday I left the house for a Mom’s day off.  I was looking forward to a fancy lunch and some time away from my lovely, high energy kids.  Little g is in the stage in her life where the only thing she wants is her mom.  So as I got on my snow boots and coat she noticed, screamed and then brought me her own boots.  I took her back to the couch, to her dad and handed him the boots to put on.  She thought she would be coming with me since she was getting boots on and was content until she saw me walking out the door. Then her cry was loud and persistent.

In the moment I felt no remorse as I closed the door in her face.  I deserve some time alone, do I not?  She gets so much of my attention, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to take a break for a while.  So I left with no guilt.
I went to lunch and enjoyed Sundance’s Author Series where Cheryl Strayed talked about her book Wild.  About an hour and half into the experience I started thinking about the kids, how they were doing, and what they were doing.  Was g still crying? Two and a half hours passed and the author series ended.

I could’ve raced back home right away.  I felt a kind of unspoken pressure that I should be home with the kids.  That’s what I’m used to, that’s what I do everyday. But before I did my logical side kicked in.  My kids were with Mountain Dad, little g should be asleep for her nap, and if there had been some emergency I would’ve gotten a phone call by now.

When I finally returned home, three and a half hours later little g was asleep and Big E was watching TV with Mountain Dad.

“How long did little g cry?” I asked.

“Only thirty minutes or so,” said Mountain Dad.  “She would walk over to the door and cry ‘mama’ a few times until I could distract her with a toy or something.”

My heart sank.  Thirty minutes? My previous callousness melted away as I imagined my little cherub sobbing for her mother who she assumed had abandoned her forever. Half an hour of heart wrenching sadness is too much for anyone. I felt awful. I know logically that it’s not a bad thing to leave my children for an afternoon and go do something I love, but I still felt a little selfish.

To atone for being a “bad mom” I asked Big E if he wanted to play outside with me.  If you’re like me, you’d get bored playing construction machines with a four-year-old after about five minutes.  If you’re not like me then you’re either an architect, professional sand castle maker or a liar. So for me to offer to play construction machines in the snow with E, and to commit to it for a whole hour really means something.  I considered it my penance for abandoning my baby. After all I was being a “good mom” for my son.

For the next hour Big E and I set about plowing the walkway using two toy front loaders, an excavator and a dump truck.

This is as far as I got before finally pulling out the shovel.  I could’ve gotten the shovel out sooner and just called it a big bulldozer but I didn’t think about it until later. Besides using the toys was part of my penance.  Playing side by side with Big E was my way of feeling like a “good mom” again since little g was still napping and I couldn’t make it up to her.   

When little g woke up she raced over to me calling, “MA MA!” Her exuberant joy at seeing my face was only match by my joy at seeing hers. I picked her up and snuggled her for a minute.  After about sixty seconds she was ready to move on.  I put her back down, she picked up a toy and suddenly all was forgiven.  What had I been worried about? 

Looking back on it, it sounds a little silly that I felt so bad about leaving little g. It also sounds silly that I tried to clear my walkway with a four inch wide plastic scooper, but I did that too. I don’t think leaving little g made me a bad mom, nor do I think playing with Big E made me a good mom. Over all I am a loving, attentive parent, as evidenced by little g’s reaction at my return.

The judgement put on me was completely my own.  Little g probably doesn’t even remember me leaving and Big E probably doesn’t remember me playing with him. I didn’t need the judgement, but I judged myself anyway. It would be great if in the moments where I feel guilty about my mothering abilities, I could just remember that I try my best.  I really do. Sometimes I can’t help but feel like a good or bad mom, even when I’m neither. I’m just me, trying to be the best mom I can be.