Traveling with small children is always a challenge and we’ve certainly done a lot of it. Most of the time things go fairly smoothly and we get to and from our destination without any major mishaps. Occasionally though we have a trip where everything seems to be going wrong and the temptation is strong to just turn around and go back before anything else can happen. Such was the case with our holiday travels this Christmas.
The plan was to have Christmas at home Tuesday morning and leave that afternoon, arriving at the grandparents’ house Wednesday night in time for the Christmas Eve service. Early Monday morning after I fed the Little Guy and put him back to bed, I found Care Bear fast asleep in a dried puddle of vomit with a diaper starting to overflow. (She had been struggling with diarrhea the last two days.) Thankfully I was already planning to do laundry in preparation for the trip. Needless to say, it was a long day between dealing with her and trying to get everything prepped for having Christmas the next morning and then leaving. Care Bear threw up again Monday night; just enough to need sheets and jammies changed. Having already done the laundry, I didn’t want to run to the Laundromat again before leaving and figured we’d just take it with us and do wash at Grandma’s. But then Princess got so excited about opening presents that she forgot to go potty until it was too late. So, back to the Laundromat I trekked.
At this point Dh and I were wondering if we should post-pone our travels until the next day. After much deliberation we decided to continue. Care Bear hadn’t thrown up all day and just wanted to sleep which we figured she could do in the car. Everyone else was fine and we didn’t want to mess up the timing of the family events that were planned.
After getting a much later start than we had intended, we headed down the road and got as far as the other side of town before Care Bear had problems. After cleaning both her and her seat we continued on our journey. About an hour further down the road the weather turned nasty and we crawled along battling black ice and fog. After passing lots of vehicles off the road and a number of police cars dealing with a pile-up on the other side of the road we came across a recent accident and stopped to offer help. The truck had rolled several times landing upright and thankfully the couple inside were not hurt. No one had responded to their 911 call yet and we found out from a passing snowplow that they had gone to cold reporting (there were so many accidents that if no injuries were reported they weren’t sending anyone out). We offered to take them to a hotel and they in turn paid for a room for us as well since it was now nearing midnight.
The next day we continued on, making the usual stops to feed the Little Guy and change diapers. Thankfully Care Bear was no longer throwing up. However, now that she was keeping stuff down the diarrhea returned and by the end of the day had gone through every pair of pants we had brought for her. The straw that about broke this mommy’s back happened just a couple hours shy of our destination. Half an hour after our last stop Buddy in a panicked voice told us that he had left his brand new watch at Wendy’s when he had changed into his jammies. At that point I was ready to just turn around and go home; never mind the fact we were almost there. Thankfully, when dh immediately called the restaurant there was still someone there (since it was Christmas Eve, they had closed early and we were the last customers) and they agreed to hold it until we came back through.
I am happy to report that from this point on the trip went smoothly and everyone had a great time. We had two Christmas dinners; the first at Grandma & Grandpa’s on Christmas day and the second at Dh’s aunt and uncle’s on Saturday. It was a great time of fellowship and we had fun learning a new game – Telephone Pictionary. We also were able to get together with Dh’s cousins again on Monday before beginning the trip back. So, despite the very rough start I would say overall it was a good trip.
3 Responses to Traveling with Kids