Mama on Wheels - Traveling with Kids

I hate traveling. I really do. It's not a "vacation" for mama. It's torture. The trip there is totally stressful for me and I find that if I'm lucky enough to have someone (an adult) come with me, I make them want to jump out of the van.

I'm supposed to be packing for a Memorial Day trip to my in-laws - I've done this for the past two hours and I'm so annoyed, I just needed a break. I don't have enough time to update this blog (or really enough energy) so I thought it would be a good time to take a break.

My kid are now 7, 5 and 2. Mostly they do pretty well in the car, but I need an arsenal of books, toys, gadgets in the car in order to keep myself from wanting to jump out of the car myself.

Here is a list of things that I'm attempting to pack for them. 99.95% of these are for the older two girls because frankly, the little one just throws whatever I give her on the floor. Mind you... usually I'm traveling alone with my kids but this time, my partner in crime is coming with us so yes, I will actually have another set of hands! Most of the time I'm reaching back from the drivers seat to give my daughter stuff (snacks, water, juice, toys, stuffed animals, and whatever else she has decided to throw at me). It's very frustrating and I'm lucky if I have not gotten in an accident yet.

List O' Crap:

• LeapPads (a must since we don't have iPads for the kids like most normal people I know)
• HEADPHONES!!!!!
• Sticky Mosaic things
• Stickers & Stickerbooks
• Magnetic Play sets
• Water bottle
• Colored Pencils
• Sketchbook
• Flashcards
• Workbooks for school
• Word Searches
• Pen stampers
• BOOGIE BOARD

• WORD WHIZ & MATH WHIZ



• Travel Rainbow Loom (NEW ITEM!!)
• MP3 player 
• Pipecleaners.  Make into jewelry, animals, springs, braid, etc.
• Snacks 
• Boxes of raisins, string cheese, crackers, grapes, apple slices, juice boxes,
• Nuts, M&Ms, dried fruit, granola, goldfish crackers, pretzels, gummy fruit snacks, etc.  
• Marshmallows and Pretzels - good to squish together
• Pepperoni. Seriously, they love it
• Energy bars for mom, maybe a Diet Coke or two!!! I need to have something to eat every 7 minutes or so, need to stay awake!!!
• Random things:
• ziploc bags
• baby wipes
• garbage bags
• paper towel
• first aid kit (one time i let them open everything. kept them busy!!!)
• spill proof cups
• water bottles for the older ones
• cups for putting snacks in!!! easy to pass back

This is what I have so far. Not much I know. I try to avoid anything that can fall on the floor or that has tiny pieces. I know people who actually wrap things up and give them to their kids for good behavior on the way to the destination. I tried that one time but it just caused a fight on what was considered good behavior. I wasted all this time wrapping and I just ended up unwrapping myself and throwing them back there. Good thing I have a good football arm to make it to the back row of the minivan.

Here are some things that I picked up at the local store. Hopefully they will work! There are some things that I have had in my stash and other things are new.

I have made the strategic decision to give up some trunk space and put the middle child in the FAR BACK with the older one. This could make or break the trip. She is 5 and sometimes can blow at any minute. The 7yo is pretty good and is in a high back booster so she can reach things and pick things up. I don't mind that she is in the far back but the 5yo is still in a 5pt harness so she is left to the mercy of the people around her. I pray they get along. I got the MEMORY game so they can play together. I have heard good things but we will see. 

I am a big fan of doing "schoolwork" on vacation. I like to throw in some sort of educational item such as flash cards, workbook, a journal to write down your activities for the older one. Usually it works. We will see. I found a few things for her this year such as a the HOT DOTS pen and some work books and flash cards. I hope she likes it. I then had to get the younger one as well since they will be sitting next to each other. It might keep them busy for about 5 minutes but its 5 minutes that I will gladly take!!!!

As for how we keep everything, I have bins back there. Each one gets their own crate and I pile in the stuff they would like. The older kids have these trays from One Step Ahead: 

They work pretty well. They have a strap to go around their back and it doesn't cause too much screaming... that is until they want them off and they want them off now. 

I'm always asking other mamas what they use for travel. Over the years you figure out what works and what doesn't. I'm constantly changing my stash of stuff. The key is that I don't let them use this stuff when we are at home so they don't really remember they have it all. It stays in a travel bin in the basement. When I bring it out, they are like "wow, hey great stuff mom, thanks!!!"

As for the two year old, I have no frigging clue what I'm going to do. I guess I could give her some post it notes or other things. Stuffed animals, toy phones... really ANYTHING i could find in the house. I picked this up today however after reading the reviews JUST NOW I am not sure I'm going to open it. It looks horrible. It got an average of 3 stars in 84 reviews. People said they would give it zero stars if they could. Wonderful. Well... we will see how desperate I get. 

CRAYOLA MY FIRST DOODLE BOARD

I'm a really big fan of color wonder.... however, she would use those markers as bottle rockets into the front seat. Not gonna play that game. I also have a similar board that takes a water pen, if only I can find it. 

IF YOU READ THIS, please comment on what are your favorite things to take with you on trips for kids with similar ages. Would love to hear from you!!!!

Happy save travels.

:)R

Car Seat Safety - What you need to know

As I'm working on updating my own blog on Car Seat Recommendations, I came across this article by Revolutionary Parenting.com. It's a good article about reminding us to stop and pay attention to how we buckle our kids into the car seat. This is scary and can happen to anyone. I worry about my oldest in the back who is still in a 5pt harness at 7yo that she is tight enough and her straps are up high enough. I don't check every time. I will now.

CAR SEAT SAFETY BY EVOLUTIONARY PARENTING
http://evolutionaryparenting.com/guest-post-car-seat-safety-guide/

Some advice from yourself

Never a truer letter was ever written. Here is a cross post of "One Mom Wrote A Letter To Her Pregnant, Childless Self". I almost peed my pants. But then again, if I jump or sneeze, that usually happens anyways thanks to my wonderful kiddos and way too much pushing.

http://thebertshow.com/one-mom-wrote-letter-pregnant-childless-self/

Above article : Mom Kelly Steele and blogger from In the Mom Light sat down to write a letter to her former childless pregnant self on Scary Mommy.

Kids who refuse to eat dinner - and how to win! (sort of)

Kids who refuse to eat dinner - and how to win! (sort of) - well.. at least call it a draw.

Meals are horrible. I hate Dinner. I hate Breakfast and Lunch and Dinner especially. With three kids, dinner is absolutely painful. My oldest child… when she wants to eat, she literally screams "I'M HUNGRY!!!" and demands dinner immediately. It's like 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. We get home from school and she has a snack but apparently when 4:59 comes, she wants dinner. The middle one just refuses to eat anything that doesn't have the word "dog" in it. Third one, well… she just pushes the chair up the counter or the pantry and gets her snacks herself. For simplicity sense, we will call them Girl A, B and C.

A eats anything. anytime. in large portions. Except vegetables. She will make gagging noises and pretend that my food is so bad that she will vomit all over the table. I guess I shouldn't say she eats anything. She eats MOST things. Every once in a while she yells OH NO!!! when the food is placed in front of her. Everyone comments on how much she eats and how she is just great because she eats salads and finishes everything. Yep… that's at restaurants or at school or at other people's houses. She does awesome. At home, not so much. If it has noodles and cheese over it melted with butter, she will devour it. Chicken nuggets, sure. At first she says she doesn't want it and makes odd noises, but then I say, okay… that's fine, time for bed and then she snaps out of it and starts eating. How about real chicken? Well.. not really. But she will consider it but not guaranteed that she won't gag. It's a crap-shoot on whether or not she will eat but I don't worry about her dietary habits. Usually we are okay with her. I can get her to eat most things, except for the peas, carrots, some green beans. She claims she has eaten mashed potatoes before, but I don't' believe it. She will however eat smoked salmon with cream cheese and capers, sushi, and shrimp by the pound!!!

B - Well. Here is my problem. she eats nothing. Her picture is at the top of this page. Gleaming over her plate. Falling off her chair. Laying on the floor. These are her demands at dinner time.

• salami, hot dogs, chicken nuggets
• cannot be real chicken. if you have cooked it at home, she will know that it's not a proper nugget
• nothing with melted cheese on it
• nothing that has touched melted cheese
• she will eat Colby Jack cheese in chunks- but not cheddar or white cheese. Must be swirled. And not cooked or melted
• She will eat pizza - but the cheese needs to be removed. By you. Before she sees it. God help her when she gets to school.
• peppers and hummus (OKAY THIS IS GREAT!!!!!_
• hashbrowns (this is new - husband made them, she ate. I was astonished)
• Fried Egg Yolk (the yolks only - no white). That's very odd.
• Yogurt (if it looks like a dessert - recently the unhealthy TRIX yogurt comes to mind). Sometimes my husband can trick her and get her to eat Greek Yogurt with some granola
• Corn on the Cob
• Noodles with Pasta sauce with no chunks or green flecks, or onions
• Green Beans (so she says)
• Pancakes or Waffles with butter all over it. Preferably with chocolate chips in them
• Eggo mini waffles  or mini pancakes (yeah!!!!)
• Trader Joe Pancake Ball things
• Butter (she will eat the stick)
• Guacamole
• Make your own tacos (which means no meat, beans - but she will have sour cream, black olives, guacamole, some salsa)
• The Orange Rice from Jose's here in our hood
• Bacon
• Goldfish crackers and chips
• Snacks of any kind
• Bars (like a power bar or some sort of sweet fun bar that you buy at the store)
• Slim Jims (gross) - I want to disclose I did NOT give her her first Slim Jim. Yuck.
• Most fruit by the pound
• Cookies
• Cakes
• Ice Cream
• Dessert of any kind
• She will move mountains in order to have dessert (and dessert in our house is like Apple Sauce - but if I call it dessert - she responds)

C - eats anything. She is almost 2. We have no issues. It's wonderful. She's the third child. 

See… the whole food problem I like to think is not my fault. All kids are like this, right? All kids are this picky??? Do other families get in huge arguments at dinner? I can't even tell you how many times someone has gone away from the dinner table screaming. Sometimes… it's me. Not gonna lie. Girl B grew up with major food issues. She was allergic to soy, dairy and corn for the first 3 years for her life. She had never had a Cheerios. For her second birthday, we couldn't have cake. She had natural applesauce with a "2" candle in it. Sad and pathetic. She would get so sick after a relapse that she would have blowouts about 10 times a day. Poor kid. We finally took her to a holistic doctor after our Childrens GI doc wanted to cut her open and do an exploratory surgery. Bottom line is she gave her some sort of spray and it cured her but every since then, she is obsessed with sweets (possibly since we gave her Vanilla Rice Milk as her milk after she went off hypoallergenic formula and when we cut her off of that, she needed sweets immediately - thus her love for anything sweet) and is just a horribly picky eater. Perhaps she was attacked by melted cheese when she was younger but her reaction to these foods is insane. Poor girl. Poor anyone who gets in the way of this rage. (Disclosure: Child B is the sweetest thing you can possibly imagine and I love her with all my heart- her personality might be exaggerated for this article to make a point about food - but she still has her moments!!!)

Back to my point of this post. Dinners became unbearable. My husband and I last year went to a "Love and Logic" seminar and they talked about dinners, They talked about mealtime and how you just need to NOT BE A SHORT ORDER COOK and if you don't like what is on the plate then the parent says "uh oh, I'm sorry, well dinner is over I hope you like what is for breakfast!!." Sounds very good and all, however when you kid is screaming and not eating and everyone is yelling, it becomes hard. We did implement the "if you don't' like, then I'm sorry the kitchen is closed" way of life. You just need to make sure you make something that you are pretty sure is a) healthy b) they have a chance in Hell of liking. Seems to be doing better on that front. But what was hard, was the waiting. The MAKING THE CHILD FINISH THE DINNER. Well we don't make them finish, but if I went to the trouble of making this dinner (and I take into consideration their pickiness and the foods that they like when I make them) then you need to show me the respect and eat something. I refuse to throw out another entire meal. You don't need to eat it all. Usually it's "three bites to be polite". That works. Sometimes Girl A says "can I take 7 because I'm 7?". Sure… go ahead. 

We needed to make other changes once we were at a stand off when it came to the end of the dinner. One kid was finished, the other was not eating anything. Someone told me about this timer. They used it for computer time, dinner time, play time, and just about any other time. It works great! 

We implemented it a few weeks ago and man… it really is great. Kid A told me that she has one on her wall at school. It's a visual showing of how much time we have left. When Kid B refuses to eat, I know she will respond to the timer. She knows that once this timer goes off, her plate will go away and we will be done with dinner. The first time we used it, I set the timer for 25 minutes…. she sat like that picture above staring at her food and we waited. No one in the family can get up. We stay and show respect. Now Kid A had wanted a special dessert that night and I said okay. I told B that if she "finished" her meal (meaning took 4 big bites of each food) she would be able to be done and could partake in our dessert fest. Our pediatrician says they won't starve. A 4 year old who has 4 large bites of each food on the plate will be fine. First night - she didn't eat. Crying. Screaming. Was eventually taken upstairs throwing herself around the room. The second night… she started to eat. But the key is NO REACTION FROM THE PARENTS. You tell them once and then again and then that's it. I can't tell you how many times myself or my husband would yell "KEEP EATING!!!!!!!!". It was so stressful. Slowly the stress is going away. She still is not eating tons. The problem with her pickiness is not going away but at least we have a system. By the way, I had to let go personally about the fact that I feel bad that no one likes my food or that I'm wasting food by throwing it away - we save as much as we can but there are only so many days of leftovers I can handle. 

So far: I am no longer a short order cook and I no longer yell at dinner.  Usually about 5-10 min into dinner, we set the timer for 20 minutes. That is plenty of time. We are not slow eaters by any means so I didn't think I would need more. Some families need 45. I don't have that kind of patience considering Baby C is probably climbing out of her highchair at about 15 minutes.

Here is a picture of the Time Timer. We have the one with the handle. I love it. It is very sturdy and has a protected face on the front. Kid proof. It stays by the computer too which helps me with having them take turns on the keyboard. 

If you are looking for a time management solution, this might be your solution!!! Kids think it's fun and it's mom friendly. There even seems to be an iPhone app!!!!! Give it a try! Or come over to my house and witness "the dinner" but don't try and get up during the middle of your meal or your food will walk away from the table!! (another wonderful tip!!)

By the way, if you have any tricks that you use (such as the plate walking away or the timer) please feel free to share them with me. I struggle every day!!!!!

Happy Baby Thoughts :)

R

http://www.timetimer.com