Helpful Mom

Along the way driving to your destination you should think of the drive as part of the trip.  I know we are trying to get there as quick as possible so we can get out of the car and start the fun.  But we should try to make it part of the fun and enjoy it along the way, make a memory or two.  In order to try and do this and keep our sanity I pack things for even our stops along the way.  We try to stop every hour and a half to two hours to get gas, food, potty break, and most important let the kids run around.

If you are stopped at a basic rest stop there are simple ways to have fun.  I keep chalk, bubbles, and punching balloons in my glove box at all times.  (You never know when your car might break down with kids in the car)  All these items are small and portable.  Kids love to draw and if you can get them to play hop scotch, or act out a story.  My girls love to act out Jonah, by drawing a boat, a whale, dry land, and Ninevah, then jump from the boat to the whale, to dry land, to Ninevah, and over and over again.  It’s a simple way to teach them Bible stories and use their imaginations while stretching those legs, just use your imagination.  Bubbles, who doesn’t like bubbles?  Kids love to blow them, kids looove to chase them and try to catch them.  I even keep a small bottle in my purse for those moments in a long line when you need a distraction.  And punching balloons can be blown up, played with, deflated, re-blown up, etc.  I’ve also packed jump ropes and very basic kites.

When plotting our route I will also look for parks we could stop and take a short hike.  Once we stopped and took a 20 minute hike into a park to see a pair of beautiful waterfalls.  And I will also check out McDonalds website to search for where the ones with play areas are along our path.  That way we can plan on stopping at those spots for lunch or dinner and let the kids run free.  Usually we’ll eat our meal while the kids play, and then when it’s time to leave we’ll go buy the kids their meals and let them eat in the car.

We’ve all done it at some point wheither it was an hour and a half trip or a three day drive and have had to deal with the pinned in kids that have a case of the squirmies.  In an effort to entertain the kids along the way we have tried various strategies.  One is that while in the car I have prepacked goody bags for each hour of the drive.  In it will be various things, usually one small toy, a craft, and a snack or treat.  I will label them with the child’s name so that the toy will age appropriate, and number them so that the kids are getting the same things at the same times, and so that if the bags have things that build on each other they will get them in the right order.  Most toys come from either the dollar store, clearance sales after holidays, party favors from the party store, or things I pick up at garage sales and sock away for trips.  Things like small etch a sketchs I got after Easter because they are egg shaped, kids don’t care it’s new toy on a looong trip.  Craft things can be found at Michaels, Joanns, and AC Moore for a $1 or less that will have pictures to color, markers, and stickers all in one easy to pack package.  Or make necklaces or sticker books, or just a sheet of stickers in each bag to stretch them out.  And window clings are fun if they can reach the windows.

In addition to that I take a box books with us that they haven’t read in a while, although you may have to dole them out yourself, the first time we did this we put in on the seat between them but they kept fighting because they both wanted the same books since they were “new to them”.  Library books sales are a great way to get new books for a trip.  Go the last day of their sales when they have their bag sale where you typically pay $1-3 a bag you can fill full of books.  I did this with the idea that if we needed to leave them at our destination it wouldn’t be a big deal since I only paid $2 for them.  And I also pack a box of bigger toys they’ve never played with before.  Things like magnetic scenes with people with clothes you can dress them in, like paperdolls but magnetic.  Or I found a flannel board with a zipper bag full of dolls, clothes and wigs to play with.  Also paint with water books, with prewet Q-tips in a zipper bag, extra sticker books, coloring books, and clip boards to make it easier to color and draw in the car.  I’ve also found books that are like the old Where’s Waldo books but are made for preschoolers so they are easier and have pictures of the various items to look for, they are called “Look and Find” and come in all kinds of characters from Princesses to Cars.  And of we finally got the new standard, portable DVD players for the car which work wonders.  These we usually stash away until we have been on the road for a couple hours, usually after the first pit stop.  That way we’ve gotten to the point where the excitement has worn off a bit and they are just beginning to get bored.

Libraries can be a great resource for road trips.  You can borrow DVDS that your kids haven’t seen before, and you are allowed up to 25! on the monroe county system, usually there is a limit of 4 or 5 per library though.  You can check them out for a week and they cost $1 a day in late fees.  Also I know that the Penfield library has leappad books in quantity that you can check out, with no quantity limits.  And of course you can take lots of books with you, which you can ask to have an extended due date for up to six weeks from check out date.  They also have audio books for kids and adults which you can borrow.

Other ideas is signing up for blockbuster or netflick and take those dvds with you, no late fees here and you can stick them in the mail while you are out so you don’t have to worry about where that video went.  If you have  blockbuster ones you can trade them in at a local store for other movies.  Or you can check out Red Box dvds.  They rent movies for $1 a day, you can keep them as long as you like they just keep charging you $1 for every 24 hours.  Around Rochester they are just inside Wegmans, they are a big vending machine which accepts credit cards and you can pick from a large selection of the newest videos.  When we were in vacation they had them in McDonalds restaurants in Houston.

Have you heard of the hot new vacation spot?  It’s got all the amenities of home because it is your home.  It’s a staycation.  There are benefits and drawbacks to a vacation at home.  With two young preschoolers driving more than 6 hours away from home is just crazy!  It will take more like 8 hours to make that 6 hours and if they are tired it can feel like much longer.  As they’ve gotten older it has gotten better since they can sit still longer than when they were first learning to walk and couldn’t be pinned down for anything.  So the obvious pro is no long drive there and back which of course means saving dollars on gas and meals on the road.  Which leads me to the next pro/con, saving money on meals.  By staying home you can make your own meals saving lots of money by not having to eat out.  This can be both a pro and a con since that means you have to do the cooking on your vacation.  Of course most vacations I end up cooking anyways since we try and get a place with a kitchenette so we can save money by making meals.  But there are things you can do to make that staycation cooking easier, by either making meals ahead of time that all you have to do is reheat, use prepared foods, or eat out for the main meal of the day since you don’t have to pay for a hotel you’re still saving money.  Another way to save some work on your home vacation is to use paper products so you don’t have to wash all those dishes on your vacation.  Of course with all the time you save driving or flying gives you extra vacation days to play with and of course there’s no packing, unpacking, buying the things you forgot to pack.

With little kids that are on fairly strict schedules involving naps staying home is a great thing.  We have attempted three different vacations in the past with our girls as babies and toddlers with mixed results.  It’s always been hard to get up and rush out because you knew you had to back to nap by 2-3pm or you would have a huge meltdown on your hands.  And not to mention the times we actually tried to all sleep in one hotel room together.  Trying to get your girls on different schedules to fall asleep in a new place and then you have to tip toe around the room til you want to go to sleep.  One time we rented two adjoining hotel rooms and still had to separate the girls by putting one in the bathroom!  Our most successful vacation was last year when we rented a beach house in Rhode Island which had three bedrooms so everyone had their own room and the girls had a yard to play in and they had a VCR to play their veggie tales in.  But going back to the topic at hand, by staying home we can keep them on their regular schedule so we are all happier and more rested.  There isn’t that feeling of we have to see and do everything because we may never be back here again.  And it’s fun to take dad along to see the places that I take the girls to all the time but he has never been to.  And there are lots of things to discover together too.  You don’t have to worry about getting lost or have unexpected tolls or parking charges.

There is of course the pitfall of wanting to clean your house and do laundry, and grocery shopping, paperwork, etc.  But you can set it all aside if you like, even hire a maid service at the end of a week from some of the money you saved by staying home.  Or you can clean it yourself and splurge on a massage or mani/pedi out of the money you saved.  You can put your mail on hold if you want to avoid paperwork during your break and turn off your phone or set it to go straight to voice mail.  And if you can let laundry go for a week while you’re on vacation surely you can let it do the same thing at home.  But if you’re like me you’ll still do all of the above because one of the things I don’t like about going on vacation is all the catching up afterwards.  But this way my husband is around to help wrangle the kids while I work so I do get a break too.

And of course you can get a babysitter at home because you already have people you can trust to do it.  That is always been the hard thing about vacations is that 24/7 with your family and not even being able to go on a date with your husband.  But by staying home you can have friends or family watch them while you go out for dinner or for a day so you can go do something fun for adults that you couldn’t do with the little ones, like white water rafting.

Another great thing is the kids have lots of toys to play with where you are staying ;P And you can afford to buy something special for them to play with with the money you saved.  I was able to pick up a used bouncy house for my moms group but have set it up for the kids in the backyard for the week and they are loving it.  That definitely beats a hotel with a pool.  Of course I heard of one family that did a staycation who used some of the money they saved to buy one of those small snap set pools for their yards.  So that money saved will bring entertainment for years to come.

So today we went to something we haven’t done for a while and were able to take family with us which made it even more fun and less work.  Many hands make light work, it’s so true.  We went to a corn maze or a maize maze as some call them.  We have gone before but haven’t gone in a few years because it can be a lot of walking and with toddlers it can be too long for them since they don’t get it.  But we thought this year they were old enough, and I think they did great.  Of course the one we went to has a lot more than just a maze, it has goats you can feed, all kinds of playground structures, a variety of smaller mazes of different types to try out, a trike grand prix, jumping pillow, huge slide, and more.  So we got there early before the maze even opened and spent a hour doing all the activites before going into the maze.  The maze itself took us about an hour and a half to walk and we had fun.  Now keep in mind we took our jogging stoller with us so the kids could ride or walk depending on how they were doing.  That also allowed us to bring drinks, food, and our trusty travel potty for that emergency pitstop when you are lost in a field.  And don’t forget your sunscreen because even though you think you’ll be shaded by corn you’d be wrong.  The paths are wide enough for our double jogger stroller if that gives you an idea so most of the time you aren’t in the shade.  And of course by the time we were done with all that walking we decided that we’d earned ice cream which they of course sell, along with a variety of other things.  All in all we had a great time, the girls loved it and took great naps when we got home.

Where did we go you ask?  It was Long Acre Farms, in Macedon, NY.  Every year they have a different theme to the maze which if you had an aerial view you would see a picture in the maze such as this years theme of fitness that you can see pictured.  There is a cyclist, runner, swimmer, weight lifting, and the heart beat which is the way out.

Maize aerial view

The maze is divided into squares which you can find a mail box located in each square which will have a mail box with squares on the map to help you find your way out.  There are also different colored sections to help you visualize where you are in the field, like the heart beat was red, and the water was blue.  There a couple bridges that you can go above the level of the corn to give you an idea where you are.  Also they give you very tall flags and a team name so they can tell where you are at all times and you can “flag” down help if you are hopelessly lost or have to go to the bathroom or whatever.  You can either get a worker have you walk you out or they can give you hints to help you on your way.  They also have trivia questions along the way in case you were getting bored.  But most people are too busy trying to beat the record time ;P  All in all it’s a fun family outing for all ages.

Prices run from $6.50-$10 depending on what activities you choose-either an all in one combo or just maze and of course the ages of each person.    Open Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun from 12-6pm.  There are many corn mazes popping up around the country since it’s a great way for farms to earn extra income.