Recently, we took on a BIG family trip. We drove almost 3000 KM in 7 cities in 2 provinces. Crazy? Maybe! Fun? Absolutely!! Would we do it again? YES!!! We passed those kilometers having fun and laughing and enjoying each other. I was begged by a friend to post how we kept a very active 4 year old busy in the car, so here you go!!
We started out visiting my hubby's family. It was 650 KM to get there, and I worried about how Gele would last in the car. We packed a Bored Bag, and let her pull things out as she wanted them.
Here's what was inside:
A Portable DVD Player. We got G's as a Christmas gift, but they do sell them at Wal Mart and they can be fairly inexpensive.
DVD's. What's a DVD player without DVD's? We bought some CD sleeves that fit in a 3-ring binder and filled them up with movies from home. Don't feel the need to take along dozens of cases. The sleeves will keep your movies safe :)
Books. Take two or three of your little one's favorites, not the whole library. We took along one book that had 6 stories in it, and it was full of pictures that kept her entertained.
Blocks: We hit up our local Dollar store and found some fun toys for the car. We found a little travel bag of Duplo-style blocks. There are about 25 blocks in it; the perfect amount to make a few creations!
A Lap desk. We got ours at Michaels. It sits on her lap and has a small holder on each side which was perfect for holding her felts and crayons and coloring books. It was also great for when she was eating her snacks, as it kept crumbs off of the floor! We waited to get ours on sale (It was $12), and then we used a 40% off coupon and it was even cheaper!! It was great!!
Color Wonder books and felts. TRY TO AVOID REAL FELTS!!!! Unless you want to find your child's graffitti all over the back seat of your car, go Color Wonder all the way! They have dozens of options for boys and girls, and the felts are specially designed to ONLY draw on the special paper!! It can get a bit pricy, but they are often on sale at Wal Mart or Michaels, and if you get them at Michaels, you can often use the 40% off coupons! We are big fans, can you tell? :) The Dollar store will sometimes carry them as well.
Play Doh. If you are feeling brave and using a lap desk in the back seat, pull it out! I had some small tubs of play-doh left over from G's birthday party favor bags, so we got a couple of colors and put them in a Ziploc bag with a couple of craft sticks for cutting and a couple of shape cutters. We actually saved this in a separate box with some paints and real felts that we saved for Baba's house. We weren't brave enough to do it in the car, but because we stayed with my folks while we were in town for a wedding, it was great when we had wedding stuff to do as G had lots of time to get crafty :)
Coloring books and crayons. Always a hit! We also had a bag of stickers that she had picked out for the trip. Just make sure that if you are driving in the heat that you DO NOT leave the crayons in the car! You may come back to a bag of melted goo if you park somewhere hot!!
Books on tape. We went to our local library, and G picked out a couple of books. These weren't as big a hit as I thought they would be. She listened to one at Grandma's house, and then she was done. She had lots of cousins to play with and she mostly just wanted to look out the window and watch her movies and color in the car.
Snacks!! Part of the fun of going on a car trip is eating snacks. We went to the grocery store (Wal Mart is often cheapest!) and we found some fruit snacks and crackers. I bought some individual Goldfish packages, and those were perfect for her. Be careful with sugary snacks, though. They tend to cause blood sugar to rise very quickly, which can often lead to having VERY cranky kids if they can't burn off their energy. We took along our camping Thermos as well. It holds about 2-3 litres of water, which was a nice switch from pop and juice. G was super content with her cup of cold water, which suited us just fine! We also included some snacks like some chips, sunflower seeds, and fresh fruit. You can't drive through the Kootenay's and not stop at a fruit stand!! We had plums, apples, blueberries and raspberries. Bring along some baggies to keep the fruit in and you are good to go! Again, make sure you don't leave it in a super hot car, as it may make your fruit go moldy. Wash the fruit in a washroom along the way, just make sure you watch out for "Don't Drink The Water" warnings! We kept ours in the fridge when we'd stop for the night. G actually preferred the fruit to the other snacks; works for me!!
A potty!! Seriously!! I stole the idea from a wonderful friend, and I cannot tell you how many times it saved us on the trip! When you are driving and there are 80 kilometers before the next rest stop, there is no way a 4-year-old is going to wait that long!!! It is WAY easier sometimes to find a roadside pull-out than a bathroom! We got a small potty at our favorite Swedish box store, and put it in a large garbage bag with a roll of TP and a second bag for dirty paper. We also had alcohol soap to wash out the potty after each use. Trust me, you do NOT want to leave a dirty potty in the car if you stop!! Obviously this isn't an issue for boys and older girls may not be able to use the small potty, but at this age, it was perfect :)
A pillow or neck support. It's hard for little ones to stay awake for a long drive! Make sure you have something to help keep their heads up if they fall asleep. The last thing you want is a cranky toddler with a crick in her neck after a long sleep!
Music. Daddy and I had our own music up front, but we also had a few CD's that G loved as well. If you're lacking on kids' music, stop by your local library to take out a few CD's (just make sure you don't lose them on the trip!). Wal Mart also has a great selection of inexpensive CD's. We got one that has 50 songs that G just loves!
And that's about it!! We had one bag for food, G's toys/books etc. were in her back pack, and the pillows were on top of the snack bag. Everything was in easy reach for her, and it made the trip a lot easier!!
Here are some simple do's and don'ts for traveling with young kids:
DO: Try to take some time out to stop and take in the sights!! We stopped twice on the way to Grandma's, and it was awesome!! We got a special pass that allows us to go to any government-sponsored educational site in AB! G had a blast, and she even learned a lot in the process. Win-win!!
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| Checking out the view!! |
We also stopped for bathroom breaks, and we tried to stop where there was something to see or something to learn. And sometimes, it was just for fun!!
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| HORSES!! |
We stopped as often as we needed to, and we really enjoyed getting to spend time seeing the world through G's eyes. It was the first time that she was old enough to really enjoy the trip. Daddy and I pointed out things that we remembered from our childhood trips through the area and things that we had learned along the way, and she loved it. She thought that we were brilliant, and she even told everyone all of the stuff that she had learned along the way!! She is still talking about all of the landmarks that we saw and all of the cool things that we did.
DON'T: try to do a long trip without stopping at least a couple of times. Remember how tired and sore you get after sitting for long periods of time. Kids often have less wiggle-room as their car-seats are designed to keep them in snug, so remember that little bottoms need to stretch, too!
DO: Try to let your child linger at special sights and stops. It can be SO hard when you are trying to stay to a schedule! Trust me, I know!! We run into this every time. But it is so important to allow your child the opportunity to stretch, learn and enjoy. We spent two hours at a historical site, even though we really wanted to get going to Grandma's (and I am sure that Grandma was anxious, too!!) But G was getting so much out of it that we just couldn't make her leave. I was so glad that we had planned to stop for a bit when we were mapping out our trip! It was really special for us because there were a lot of firsts on that first leg of our journey. She saw her first theater movie (it was a 30-minute history movie based on the historical site we were at), it was her first museum trip, and it was her first look at history. Daddy and I are both really in to history and want to teach G what we can, so it was super cool that she was so on board with it!!
DON'T: Try to schedule too much at once. We only had a couple of days in each place (and sometimes we only had a couple of hours!), so we tried to plan more visiting than anything else. At Grandma's, we only had 2 whole days there, so we tried to get in as much visiting time as we could. We had a picnic in the park, an outdoor movie with Grandma, dinner with the family where we were joined by two of our favorite aunties, a tea party in Papa's backyard, and lots of hugs and snuggles. We had a new nephew to meet (PRECIOUS, SWEET BOY!!!), we had my brother-in-law and his family to see, and of course my hubby's parents to visit with!! The trip was definitely not as long as we would have liked it to be, but we got some great visiting in and we made some great memories for G as she got to visit with her grandparents, uncle and cousins, and see some amazing sights along the way!!
The second leg of our journey began the next day, so be sure to check our next post for the rest of the adventure :)
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