ON THE POSITIVE side: No one threw up. But what happens when you pack two not-so-copacetic siblings into the car for a four-hour ride? In our family: headphones, iPods, and a whole lot of discussion of just what makes boys so gross, anyway.
The Rock, of late, has taken to saying she wants to be a “traveler” when she grows up. Fair enough, except she was born into our family. To say we don’t travel much is like saying cats dislike water. Of course, it’s not that simple, right? Cats (at least our cat) are equally repelled and fascinated by water flowing from the faucet or cascading down in the shower. It seems so… shiny, but YIKES! Don’t go too near.
That’s pretty much our family’s relationship to the family vacation. Oooh. That place looks pretty. And relaxing…but oh no! The logistics! The expense! The…change of scene. It’s all so…scary. All those latter parts, are to be avoided, and as result, we haven’t taken a family vacation, other than long weekend visits to friends, in three years.
But this spring break, we’re headed off to Europe (first time in nine years for me), and so to get our feet wet, so to speak, we decided to spend this past long weekend on a trial run. We decided to take a road trip, all the way to Montréal.
This meant four hours trapped together in my car, which looks and smells like it’s dressed itself up to audition for Sanford and Son. In my defense, hey, I drive children around all damn day. They eat, mostly in my car, and treat the entire interior like one big recycling bin/sink/Kleenex.
Lord knows I’ve tried to get them to change their evil ways. Suggestions welcome, but they generally don’t seem to mind riding in the inside of a garbage can. Also in my defense, I tried to get it detailed before we left, but I couldn’t get an appointment, so I settled for the drive through wash and a quick trash-picking in the back seat. The smell abated enough for us to tolerate four hours, especially since that’s long enough so that the kids are allowed to watch movies on our iPods, short enough that the batteries will last the whole way. Two kids, two sets of headphones, two screens should add up to one quiet (if slightly grimy) ride. But, you see, one of those kids is a sister. And the other, as you know, is not.
Boys, the Rock discovered, in explicit and articulate fashion this trip, well–they’re gross. Only she says it more like this: GROOOOOOSSSSSSS. As in, “‘River!’ You ah so GROOOOOSSSSSSS.” (At 4, she tends to drop her r’s as though she’s grown up in Hahvahd Yahd. Non-New Yorkers sometimes say she sounds like she has a New York accent, but I can’t believe that’s true, so I chalk it all up to youth.)
The truth is, according to her, that boys are gross when they eat in the car. (No mention of her own unmentionable manners.) They are gross when they fart. They are gross when they pick their noses. (No one is arguing with her.) Did I mention they are GROOOOOSSSSSS when they eat in the car? And that the car, as a result, is DISGUSTING!!
“Mama! I cannot sit back here. IT’S GROOOOOSSSSSSS.”
Luckily, Montreal is a city, so you don’t really have to get back in your you-know-what car, not for four whole blissful days. But when you do finally load up for the return journey…
“Mama! This cah seat is GROOOOOSSSSSSS.”
Right. Four hours home.
No related posts.
First time here? Here's the idea:
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
No one threw up. No one threw up. Makes a nice mantra.
Ah, the family roadtrip. I have one good traveler (Rockboy) and one stick-in-the-mud (Skaterboy).
Rockboy just goes along with whatever is going on – he’s got his iPod, he’s fine.
Skaterboy managed to ask, “Are we there yet?” 4,364 times in a four hour trip. This is the child that has to study long and hard about whether or not he wants to take the long 10 mile trip to Walmart. On one hand, there is the possibility of a new toy or treat. On the other hand, there is the horrible 15 minute car ride, the possibility of being stranded on the side of the road, the inability to pack everything he owns in case the trip takes longer than 15 minutes, the missing of the TV shows, what will his friends do without him, oh, the many myriad options and conditions this kid has to consider.
No one threw up. And so far, we haven’t forgotten anyone at a rest area. So far.
Oh, Paige! I sympathize. Except my “little sister” is now six and has decided to join in the grossfest too. Now it’s all grosstalk and giggles from the back seat, all the time. If you can tolerate it, fast food french fries mask strange odors and keep their mouths otherwise occupied, at least for a few minutes. (The true reason they are called “Happy Meals”.) In the long run they make the back seat problem worse, of course, requiring occasional mining of petrified french fries. Good luck with planning the military campaign aka family trip to Europe. And since you like them, here’s a gem for the homebound: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust
We nearly did leave my brother behind once on a family vacation from Texas to Massachusetts.
For 12 minutes, my aggravated parents argued about routes when it finally dawned on me the muffled noises I barely heard over traffic were coming from the bathroom where my 9 year old brother had somehow locked himself in.
The best part (to me) was this stop for gas happened 3 miles from our house. My brother was fascinated with graffiti and couldn’t miss the chance to do a little light reading before our trip began.
After quietly assuring him our parents would have happily left him behind but for my intervention, I used that as leverage against him for hundreds if not thousands of miles of ensuing car trip. Makes me smile to think of it still.
I have friends who can’t believe the road trips we take — they circumscribe themselves to 2 hours for a day trip, with a maximum of 4 hours total in the car for driving vacations.
Starting them young is the trick, I think. Heck! Tallulah’s first roadtrip was an 8 hour drive to Washington D.C., later followed by a trip of similar duration to New York City. We used to drive to Ithaca New York for dinner at Moosewood all the way from Ottawa. Here in Europe, we drove to Sorrento for Easter last year. Our favourite Christmas market is 3 hours away, and we make the trek every year as a day trip. We drive to Prague from Geneva (more like 9 hours). We’ve driven across France, through Sweden, down to Spain…
Ever the intrepid parent, Pierre drove the kids to Berlin ALONE whilst I grabbed a plane to make a business meeting. I picked him up at the Geneva airport upon his return from Senegal (no, he didn’t get to change), he drove me to the Zurich airport, I caught my plane, and he and the kids followed in the car…
While we sometimes get antsy on long trips, we usually have a blast!