ON THE ROAD WITH KIDS

We are novice road trippers. We recently upgraded to a vehicle with lower miles and instantly felt that a little road trip was doable. A six hour jig over Thanksgiving weekend was a good first try.

I put together little packages of fun and entertainment for our kids. Before they got in the car, I placed a starting kit in their car seats. One of the kids really made use of everything put before her. The other set each thing aside at first and looked out the window, but eventually got to the entertainment we provided ;)































TO START
They each received:
1. A new color/sticker book
2. A pencil case with crayons, scissors, gluestick, and pencils (nothing gooey)
3. A plastic enclosed clipboard that contained several travel bingo games (see below)
4. A small baking tray (stored in the seat back pocket) and magnets to hold their paper games on. The tray ridges are handy for coloring and keeping everything on their laps.
5. A magazine box full of library books
6. A snack kit (I used our Beaba Babycook freezer containers and refill as needed)

DURING THE DRIVE
I had planned to give them each five small ($1 store) gifts to open one each hour. Things like construction paper, window clings, small activity books, embellishments, post-its... anything to entertain! One of the gifts was for both of them, a DVD hoping to take up two hours. I kept these gifts in a bag at my feet so that I could distribute based upon their moods, temperament and boredom level instead of actually on the hour. We ended up with some leftover gifts that I used for Christmas stocking stuffers.

PRE-TRIP DILEMMA
a few weeks prior to our trip one of our kids started urinating too frequently. When I say too frequent, I mean 18+ times per hour, that's not right. It left is a quandary... should we postpone? Should we stop by the side of the road every ten minutes? After talking with her doctor, seeing a specialist, ruling out any serious diagnosis's and spending some time considering our options, we chose to put her in a pull up. We were concerned she might feel embarrassed but she was excited to pick some out at the store. It worked like a charm. She didn't feel the need to go as often. We made some stops but at least we weren't getting frustrated on the side of the road.

All in all, these kids didn't sleep at all during our drive. They played the games and used the crafts we had planned out, and it was enough to entertain them for twelve hours of driving. That's pretty good, I say!

ROAD TRIP BINGO PRINTABLES