Family – Murphy Party of 4

As a military family, it feels like we are constantly loading up the car for a road trip. Whether it is traveling home for a visit, a few hours away for a weekend trip, or one of our big PCS (permanent change of station) moves that happen every few years, we have picked up a trick or two that really helps us feel like we have the chaos under control.

Travel Bag

We have traveled from California to Indiana and back again no less than 5 times since our 8 year old was born. Between moving from California to Missouri and back, and all our visits to Indiana just to visit family, we have pretty much memorized the route (it is long and boring, just in case you were wondering). I pack a big bag with entertainment/survival things for my kids. With having such long stretches of nothing to look out the window at, I put together travel binders for my kids to help keep them occupied. I always tailor them to what is age appropriate to hold their interest at the time, and they are so easy to customize!

The current contents of our travel bag look like this. I have a zipper ‘travel binder’ for each kid, with a lap tray, and snack bucket. I prefer the zipper binders because I can keep all the pieces contained, but we have used the open sided binders previously and they worked fine.

Here’s a peak inside my 8 year olds binder. He has a workbook, a few card games, a small deck of cards (from Halloween), some Wikki Stix, chapstick (my kids have CONSTANT chapped lips), a tick tac toe game, a small lap tray, markers, and paper. I always scour the Dollar Spot at Target before a big trip because they always have a great (and cheap!) selection of things for the kids. The Wikki Stix, card games, workbook, lap tray, and tic tac toe game all came from Target!

Here’s the inside of my 5 year olds binder. It’s a lot of the same stuff, but she has her own set of card games (I’m sure both kids will be playing them together anyway). She also has a sticker face book in lieu of a workbook, she is absolutely obsessed with these books and it will entertain her for HOURS.

I found these large lap trays at Target (the Dollar Spot is my happy place) last year when they had their back to school things out. They were $3 each and we have used them dozens of times! They are great for holding drawing materials for coloring, building Legos, doing Wikki Stix…they are so great. And they are a really sturdy plastic so they don’t bend and they are so easy to wipe clean.

I bought these containers from our local dollar store probably 3 years ago. They have 3 compartments in them (1 large and 2 smaller). I usually use them for road trips (they fit a Happy Meal and drink perfectly!), but we have also taken them to the movie theater to help contain kid drinks and snacks.

Here’s how I load it up in my big ThirtyOne bag. In the past we did all of our traveling in my husbands truck or my tiny hybrid, so the bag would sit either on the floor at their feet or in the seat between the kids. We just traded my car in for a van this year (I love it) so my kids might actually have leg room for this upcoming road trip! That small round thing in the snack container is an inflatable solar light. We put it in the window while we drive for the day, and then we let the kids use it either as a car light at night, or as a hotel room nightlight. It has come in so handy so many times! We will also have the kids tablets and headphones in there. We don’t limit screen time as much when we’re traveling, but without any internet available in the car they’d rather color or do an activity anyway.

Here’s some old travel bag things from our PCS back in 2015 when my son was 4 and my daughter was almost 2. You can see Finn with his travel binder in the top left. I went to the dollar store and bought 2 sheet pans, various magnets (these I made from wal mart), window clings, and sticker activities. We also had the portable dvd player, which is a lifesaver on long distance trips! (I think we watched Mighty Machines on repeat for 5 days)

Car Emergency Kit

One thing you learn quickly as a mom, is that they are unpredictable. The one time you load up your kids for a quick trip and you forget the diaper bag, is always the day they decide to have a blowout. It’s like they can sense it. So, I have started keeping an emergency kit in my van. I keep things like chapstick, toothpicks, sunscreen, baby wipes…anything I can think of that my family will save us a stop at CVS along the way.

Here’s a quick inside view of our car kit. I have antacids, feminine products, floss, q tips, throat lozenges, baby wipes, chapstick, sunscreen, tissues, antibacterial wash, adult Tylenol, children’s cough n cold, bandaids, and these amazing things my good friend (who is an avid hiker) gave me that help women pee standing up. I figured the only chance I’d get to use it would be a side of the road emergency! Everything fits nicely in this small container and I keep it in between the front seats.

Organize, Organize, Organize!

I am a stickler for organization. When our house is messy, it makes me feel like I can’t function properly. Clutter instantly makes me uptight and cranky. So for me, when we’ve got the whole family of 4 (5 if we bring the dog!) practically living in our car, organization can make all the difference between success and chaos. I always have containers to sort and store everything, from the kids car entertainment to separating our suitcases, I need it to be in order to take one less stress off my plate. Organize your hotel clothes in a separate suitcase to minimize how much you are loading and unloading each night. In fact, we like to bring an empty bag or suitcase with us to keep our dirty clothes separate from the clean ones. This also helps when we reach our destination to make laundry so much easier. Store snacks in a designated container that is easily accessible. If you are traveling with pets, keep their water/food bowls and leash somewhere where you grab them quickly (the car door works perfectly if you have a cubby in it!). Bring a handheld vacuum to help clear away any messes or spills easily. I promise that taking a few minutes to organize as you go, it will make your trip will feel less chaotic!

Each kid has one of these seat organizers at their seat. The tray can Velcro up to save space, and there are so.many.pockets! We keep them in the van for every day, and I love that they can put their mess in the pockets and close it up to help keep the floor uncluttered.

My husband found someone giving away this hand held vacuum a few weeks ago and I am a little too excited to bring it with us when we travel across the country next month! A quick vacuum each evening as we unload for the night will help keep the crumb mess to a minimum and my sanity in tact.

Plan ahead

I am the kind of person who needs a set game plan before we travel. With our PCS moves, we like to have everything laid out before we leave. That means planning our route, picking the fun stops along the way, and booking our hotel stays. We also like to plan ahead for meals. We will book hotels that offer breakfast, pack a large cooler with sandwich materials for our lunches, and eat dinner at a restaurant before we hit up our hotel for the night. This helps us keep the cost down, and we use our lunch break as a time to let the kids run for a bit. There are lots of great rest stops that have small playgrounds for the kids, or we will stop at an attraction we want to see and have our picnic in the parking lot. This way we can bust some boredom, load up on lunch, use the restrooms, and (sometimes) fill up the tank before we start the next stretch of driving. Another tip for planning ahead, is our gas stops! Now, I don’t mean you should map out your gas stops ahead of time, that would be exhausting. What our family does as a general rule of thumb is never let our gas get below a quarter tank. Once we notice we are close to the 3/4 mark, we start scouting for gas stops. I ran out of gas ONCE when I was in college and I vowed to never let it happen again, so a quarter tank is always when I fill back up. Another part of planning ahead is planning for emergencies! During our last cross country PCS, I made small ID kit for each kid. There was a picture of each kid on one side and their personal information on the back (allergies, emergency contact numbers, height/weight, notable scars or birthmarks) that I laminated together. I even made one for our dog! I was not about to lose anyone along the way (I know…anxiety). But having that information just in case we needed it made me feel much better!

Here we are, stopping at Bedrock City outside of the Grand Canyon back in 2015. I’ve heard it has since closed down, but it was a fun spot to spend a few hours!

We were given these ID kits at a back to school event, and I held onto them for our upcoming PCS! It has a spot for fingerprints, a photo, medical information…even dental records! It may seem like overkill, but I truly feel it is one of those things that only takes a few minutes to put together and would be invaluable if I were to find myself needing it. If it’s not your jam, then don’t sweat it.

Do you have any tips or tricks that you have picked up while traveling with kids? I’d love to hear them! We are almost exactly one month away from our next big road trip (moving from California to North Carolina!) so I’m going to be pulling out all of these tricks and then some to help ensure my sanity survives the trip!

You wake up to the sound of kids screeching and fighting in the hallway. You look at your phone, you still have 10 minutes before your alarm is set to go off and another 10 before you needed to wake up the kids for school. You can feel it in your bones that it is going to be one of those days as you emerge from your room and are immediately met with breakfast demands and complaints over the clothes you picked out the night before for them to wear. You try to calmly ask the kids to just be patient as you start pouring cereal and start the coffee pot, but you can feel your cheeks getting warm. When the hungry masses are done eating, they run off to their room. You yell down the hallway to go brush their teeth, but in reply all you get is more fighting about who hit who and who is touching the others toys. You take a deep breath and start clearing the breakfast dishes, only to notice someone spilled their wet cereal all over the floor and didn’t bother to clean it up. They know that you will clean it, so why bother? Finally after teeth brushing, hair managing, 3 outfit changes (while you are still in your pajama pants and tank top from yesterday) you are screaming like a lunatic to get everyone to put on their shoes and hurry outside because the bus is here to pick up the oldest kid and you still have to drive the youngest to their school, which opens in 15 minutes (and you have yet to brush your own teeth).

It is barely 8 am and you are already mentally exhausted when your phone beeps. It’s a text from your husband asking you to run an errand for him this morning since he is at work and you are just at home all day. You text him back ‘sure thing’ and add it to your mental list of your other errands to get done-laundry, sweeping and mopping, unloading and reloading the dishwasher, finishing some computer work you didn’t have time to do yesterday, buying milk because you used the last of it in the kids cereal this morning. You sit in your van and feel the tears start to come. You feel sad, overwhelmed, underappreciated, and ridiculous. “Why are you crying? You are so lucky! You have a husband who is able to provide financially for your family so you can stay home and manage the house! THIS is your job! You have enough money to buy milk and put gas in your van. You have 2 beautiful children and a husband who loves you all, that’s more than a lot of people get in their whole lifetime! So why am I crying in the bank parking lot?”

I will tell you why you are crying. Because you are human. As a mother, we spend so much of our day being many things for many people. Mother, wife, nurse, cook, housekeeper, chauffer, referee, lover. The list goes on and on and the benefits are ones that don’t give immediate gratification. You don’t get a paycheck, or vacation days, or sick days. There is no promotion ladder to climb and you never clock out. And the stakes are high, like really high. You are raising a family, molding tiny humans into what you hope will be productive members of society and you only have one shot at doing it right. The weight of this burden is heavy, and even though you may not carry it alone, it is a job that you can’t take lightly. So when you start your day yelling like a lunatic you feel like you are failing, or like this isn’t the deal you were promised when you made the decision to start a family.
IT.
IS.
HARD.

I see you, Momma. I see you when you are crying in your van. Or when you are standing over a toddler in the middle of a meltdown at the grocery store, gritting your teeth as you try to coax them up. I see you when you are walking out of the school office after another meeting with teachers about your child struggling in class and you’re just hoping you can hold it together until you get to your car. When you are mindlessly scrolling thru Instagram at the park while your kids play because you just need 5 minutes to do anything other than being a mom right now.
I see you.
I am you.
Your feelings are valid and you have worth. Life is hard, parenting is hard, and trying to balance it all with grace and a smile is damn near impossible.

So give yourself some grace and be kind to your feelings. Not every day will be like this and there is light at the end of the tunnel. Why? Because you know eventually it will be bedtime, and if you can just hold on until then, you get a fresh start tomorrow.

And in the meantime, there is wine and chocolate.

Because you are a Mom, and you have earned it.

Tag: Family

Road Trip With Kids

When the Mom Burnout hits you