Dear Readers of Maxabella Loves,
When Maxabella first approached me to write a ‘What My Kids Have Taught Me About Myself’ guest post, I began to work on a whimsical and charming list, including things like “That the word ‘No’ has at least three syllables – as in ‘Noh-ooo-wuh!” and “It’s not worth spending real money on baby clothes. Babies don’t care if they’re wearing Prada. They’ll vomit on it all the same.”
But then I went on a week-long car trip with my husband and three children and everything changed. For one thing, the almost 2000km we traversed severely impaired my ability to look at parenting – or, indeed, at myself - in a whimsical, charming fashion.
So, if you’ll forgive me going slightly off-topic, here instead is ‘What My Kids Have Taught Me... About Road Trips!”:
- Two hours is the limit for small humans to be strapped into their car seats without someone losing an eye.
- When packing, I should always remember that too many snacks is never going to be enough. Ever.
- Sugar might seem to be my friend but it’s not. It’s really, really not. It is the Devil in powdered form and a few minutes silence while the kids eat sugary treats is not worth the ensuing sugar-induced rampage which invariably occurs whenever we get stuck in heavy traffic.
- After more than three hours of driving, nobody will be asking “ARE WE THERE YET??” more than me, the so-called ‘adult’ in the car (my husband doesn’t count).
- I should always add a couple of hours to any estimation of how long a trip will take. Kids can quickly turn a ‘whistle-stop’ tour into a ‘toilet-stop tour’. For the record, a ‘toilet-stop tour’ is just like a ‘whistle-stop’ one, except much much slower.
- In a perfect world, children would follow the lead of women and synchronise their bladders. But, alas.
- The trick of saying “Sorry! I can’t hear you over the music!” (and then quickly pumping up the volume on the car stereo) only works to a point with kids. You see, the car stereo volume only goes up to 10, whereas the kids’ volume goes up to at least 11 and sometimes as high as 29, particularly when high on sugar and the traffic is gridlocked.
- When my husband drives, I am in charge of passing back snacks. When it’s my turn behind the wheel, the kids will wait until the moment my husband passes into Snoozy-Dreamy-Dreamland (as he invariably will) before announcing “We’re hungry!”.
- Along with ‘Speeding’ and ‘Driver Fatigue’, highway police should really be targeting ‘Drivers passing back snacks’.
- There will come a point during any road trip where I will feel like I have always been on the road, that there has never been anything other than this relentless road life. I will look at my reflection in the rear view mirror and know with great certainty that I will never amount to anything more than being Chief Passer-Backer of Snacks and Toilet Stop Coach and, on occasion, Crazy Shouting Driving Lady.
So what have my children taught me about myself? They have taught me that I am no Leyland Brother. Planes were invented to protect parents and children from going postal on lonely stretches of road. Fact. And any money I might have saved by driving instead of flying was immediately lost when I started hemorrhaging money at the first Roadside Services, if not in any subsequent wine therapy required to recover from said road trip.
Yours, realistically,
The NDM, of Not Drowning, Mothering
♥
Thanks for kicking off my guest postie week, the NDM. As I write this, I'm about to embark on my own road trip and I am afraid, very afraid...
If you haven't experienced the belly laugh that is Not Drowning, Mothering's take on life, children and taming the lady garden, I suggest you head over there immediately.
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