What The Sane Parents Do

I typed this post in Word, thanks to no WiFi connection, but I seriously wanted to pose this question, “What do sane parents do?”  And the basis for this question, the question within my question, is this, “Should I prepare the technology (and other items) for a trip and keep myself sane, or teach the kids responsibility and deal with the consequences when the kids don’t pack it themselves?”

This question seems so wrong, on so many levels.  First of all, whatever happened to trips with no technology?  When we made the trek to our family picnic all the years I was a kid, we didn’t have DVD players, tablets, smartphones, or even those antiquated electronic football games.  We had the radio, which our parents controlled, and we had our imaginations.  Most of the time, we slept.

For the first four minutes of our trip, they fought about who got to get into the van first, and why, and they fought about who gets the blue ninja turtle costume.  We don’t even have a blue ninja turtle costume!  After that, for thirty more minutes, they talked about inappropriate topics like butts and honeydew melons, chicken booties, and other six-year-old and three-year-old insanity.  Then, as I was typing this post, they continued to go on, and I continued to go crazy.  Not often do we take long trips, and not often do I get so agitated by little kid talk, but when they go over the edge, then they take me with them.  And so, I took a break, to play a little game… a sort of “Alphabet I Spy”, where we look for things around us which have the beginning sound for each letter of the alphabet, in order.  By “J”, Fritz was crying at every letter, and did not want to play the game anymore.  Every letter from “J to Z”, he whined and complained, but we played the game all the way to the end of the alphabet.

Then we had a potty emergency, and thank goodness for Daddy, who can spot an out-of-the-way gas station in a blink of an eye.  Now, she’s in the back seat, the way back, all by herself, singing, “Let It Go”, and he is back to talking about chicken booties.  I wouldn’t trade my kids for the world, but I might consider one of those limo windows, where you can’t hear what’s going on in the back seat.  Of course, that may not be a good thing either.  Maybe I’ll invent something that can be put in a van with a sort of alarm system that will tell me when something is wrong, but will mute out all the nonsense words.  That way, I can keep my sanity, and the kids can have a great, silly, wild time on family road trips.  For right now, I think I’ll keep myself sane, and pack the van with things that they can do, but let them remember to pack their technology.  Then, it’s a win-win.  If they don’t remember the technology stuff, they don’t have it, which will teach them to be responsible.  But there will be something in the van to keep their minds and hands occupied enough to keep me sane.

I’ll bet that’s what the sane parents do!