What I learned after 35 hours in the car with my children

The fam and I just spent the last several days vacationing/driving. But really there are plenty of you who know that traveling with kids is not so much a vacation as it is an adventure. And a test. To see how strong you are. To see just how much spunk and resiliency you’ve got.

Turns out I’ve got plenty of spunk, but after a certain amount of time my apparent lack of resiliency takes all that spunk and turns it into crazy town.

And let’s not forget about patience. What a virtue patience is. Well, after about day four of sojourning with children, my patience measures at a 2 on a scale of 1—75. I don’t know why I chose that scale. It just felt right. And accurate.

So it looks like I’ve got some things to work on! And I wouldn’t have even known had it not been for this trip.

It also revealed a lot about my children that had heretofore gone undiscovered, such as:

-Bubba is not content with his share of trail mix unless it has two chocolate candies in the mix.

-Bosco does know the word stupid and how he should not use it.

-Boys cannot just lounge on a beach towel for hours, taking in the scenery and fresh air. They have to be doing something. The Husband is included in this one.

-Listening to “Thriller” on repeat in the car keeps them entertained long enough for me to take a little nap.

-If you tire them out enough during the day, they will go to sleep in a tent.

-Bubba still needs a nap or he will fall asleep in ketchup. I’ve always known this but now I think he does too.

-Drinking water is very important to Bosco. If he doesn’t get it the second he wants it, a major regression to his two-year old self is completely warranted.

-They like s’mores. I guess I should have assumed this to be so.

-Getting splinters out of a five-year old’s hand is fun in a totally sarcastic type of way.

-Sand is only an enemy to the mother (me).

Knowledge is power my friends. And you better believe I’m going to use it to my advantage. Our next trip will be to some knoll covered completely in grass and wildflowers (no sand) with a view of the seashore (for me), with a never ending water supply from a nearby spring, where the kids can run around like hooligans (with gloves on their hands to avoid splinters and for the Michael Jackson music I’ll be blaring), after which everyone will take a nap, then eat a couple of s’mores and packages of M&M’s (forget trail mix). Everyone will be having so much fun and there will be good feelings betwixt all of us, so much so Bosco will have forgotten that the word ‘stupid’ even exists. Then we’ll fall asleep in a tent (with an air mattress for me).

If anyone knows where such a place exists please let me know.

The end