Are We There Yet?, Ellen Gillette [ebook reader ink .txt] 📗

someone’s “America’s Funniest Video” entry was somewhat amiss. No doubt she could not see her own vehicle from her designated dumping area, but countless car occupants just to her south were effectively distracted from their own boredom and whining by the sight of her extremely white derriere shining through the foliage.
The real answer to the Potty Break problem is simple—no food or liquids after midnight before a trip. They won’t starve, and Aunt Edna’s spinach casserole will possibly be received with genuine gratitude at the end of a long day.


S is for Sibling Rivalry

We had four children, all perfect and loving, who never raised a fist or raised their voices to each other. If you believe that, as they say, there’s a bridge up in Brooklyn I’ve got for sale, cheap. All children will fight occasionally, but fighting on a trip can be agonizingly similar to Chinese water torture. “He won’t leave me alone.” “She touched me.”
Back in the days when seatbelts weren’t mandatory, my sister and I would take turns sprawling across the back seat, the other hunched over at the door. The worst thing we would do was get right up in the other’s face and let out a blast of breath, but we had plenty of ways of annoying the fire out of each other and incurring our parents’ wrath.
One time during my own sprawl, my sister (older, and always more well-behaved) was silently reading a Nancy Drew book and I put one arm straight up in the air. That an arm, hovering just within her peripheral vision, would prove to be so disruptive to the otherwise calm of the vehicle was like gold to a child of my age and temperament. As long as it didn’t get too tired to stand there, a vigilant testimony to my power, my arm completely shattered her concentration.
Another time, I grabbed the book she was reading (she read a lot) and glanced at the last page, threatening to tell her the ending. She was so upset at this possibility that I deferred, but spent the next hour singing the last line of the book softly. “And she did, too. Lalalalala. And she did, too.” Based on these and numerous other incidents of similar aggravation-quality, it’s a miracle I survived childhood.
Parents traveling with children just have to be aware of what is taking place, the power struggles, the silent pinches to get the baby to scream, the farting contests, and, in the incomparable wisdom of Deputy Barney Fife, “nip it in the bud.” One may have to be willing to sit between siblings to put an end to their shenanigans, pull out the beds in your three-tier train car and strap them down, or ask the flight attendant to threaten them with a quick flight ground ward without a parachute, but parents are the key in such situations.


The Other S is for Safety

When we were about to embark on a thirty-hour flight from Orlando to Madras, India with four children ranging in ages from two to eight…oh I know, what you’re thinking. Were they insane? To which I would answer, quite possibly, but it was, overall, a good trip, and an invaluable year all but the oldest has largely forgotten. Yes, year. Travel to a foreign country takes on an entirely different aspect when your plan is not simply to visit (hitting the high spots and talking yourself into thinking you’ve attained even an iota of understanding of another people or culture) but to live among and alongside the people for an extended period of time.
But I digress. Back to the airport. Our youngest daughter, third in line to the throne, was a bit of a free spirit. As an outfielder playing tee-ball, she would turn her back to the game and look around for wildflowers to gather and stick behind her ears. If she was missing from the playroom where her brothers and sisters were engaged in general frivolity, I might find her in the yard chasing butterflies. She was the only one we really worried about, safety wise.
When one has a “wanderer” feel free, and guilt-free, to purchase a child’s harness and leash (hers was rainbow striped), or even borrow the dog’s. The main thing is that said child is within sight and bodily attached, not that in a crowd a predator couldn’t slice it quickly and escape (sorry, I’ve seen, perhaps, too many episodes of Criminal Minds

).
A co-worker of ours in India was taking a train trip when something (I prefer to think of it as divine providence) interrupted his sleep as the train was slowing down, but not stopping, at a particular village. He glanced around for a mental update on his family, as responsible fathers are wont to do; noticing that one of his two blonde-haired and adorable daughters was not on her berth in the open car. Assuming she’d gotten up to use the facilities, his eyes followed her probably path and settled on the horrifying vision of a stranger holding her by the arm in front of an opened side door, about to jump out with her when the train slowed down a bit more.
An altercation ensued, as you can well imagine. One thing about the mostly wonderful people of India, perhaps because so many of them have so little, they do not take lightly to anyone trying to steal from them, or from those around them. If the potential kidnapper didn’t require medical attention when the crowd (and father) was through with him, I’d be surprised.
Bottom line—keep your children within view and earshot, even if it means refraining from that important text to Aunt Edna letting her know you’re an hour away or being accused of being overprotective. Remember, if anyone is going to do bodily harm to your child while travelling, it should be you.


In Summary

I say all this—and I’ve always wanted to use this overused, journalistic bit of puffery—with tongue firmly planted in cheek. (Doesn’t that sound exquisitely obnoxious?) But truthfully, travelling with kids is worth the challenges. It does require parents to think ahead, plan for contingencies and emergencies, have back-ups (and possibly, therapy sessions scheduled in advance) but family trips are memories that will be mentally revisited for the rest of all your lives.
On a twenty hour school bus trip to Mexico City, on a set schedule with forty or fifty others headed for two months of Doing Good after their earthquake, example, our youngest child was sick. So sick, in fact, that he went through every single clothing item I had packed. Arriving in Mexico City, reeking of child-vomit and stumbling with exhaustion, we discovered that there was no light bulb in our room.
Note to self: always bring along a flashlight. And plenty of Wet Ones.

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Publication Date: 11-29-2009

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