"Are we there yet?"

Well, the Brawn family headed out for our very first family vacation ever, unless you count visiting my grandmother back when we had only a two-year-old and a fetus in utero. We discovered how much more "interesting" it is travelling with three kidlets as opposed to one that was still in diapers.

First of all, travel games do not really work as intended, at least not with my kidlets. Rooster and Horse thought it would be amusing to play a game of Travel Battleship:

     Rooster: "B-5."
     Horse: "Hit. G-3."
     Rooster: "Miss. H-9."
     Horse: "That's nowhere near where you hit before! You're supposed to try and sink the ship!"
     Rooster: "So what?"
     Me: "Just let her play the way she wants to play."
     Horse: "Fine. Miss. B-7."
     Rooster: "Oops. We have to start over. I accidentally knocked my pieces off my board."
     Horse: "Then I'm not playing with you!"
     Rooster: "Then I win!"

Fun times.

Then we played the potty game. You don't know that one? That's when the parent erroneously decides it might be a good idea to let the kidlets each have water bottles in the car. Then the kidlets drink it all within thirty seconds and decide they need to go potty RIGHT NOW, despite just having passed a rest stop two miles down the road. This is quite the challenging game for all three kidlets to play, when you take into consideration that Pig Jr. has sensory issues that make it very difficult for him to even consider using a public restroom. He's absolutely petrified of the loud flushing toilets. It got to the point where he physically looked like his bladder was already filled up and pushing out his eyes. He begged and pleaded, but to no avail. The only toilet available to him was in a public restroom. My personal favorite was when he asked me, "But can't I just go potty at home?" Nope, sorry dude. Home is well over an hour away, and you're already doing the potty dance.

Naturally, in the middle of all of this, we had to answer the infamous question a zillion times. I'm sure you know the one. "Are we there yet?" Now, I have yet to meet a kidlet who actually asks this question when the car is parked somewhere. My kidlets always ask it while the vehicle is going sixty-five down a highway with nothing but trees and clouds as far as the eye can see. A number of times, I was temped to respond that yes, we were there, just to see what they would say. Heck, after about three hours on the road, with at least two more to go, I was already getting punchy with my responses.

The lifesaver on our trip was a simple purchase I had made a few weeks back, in the form of these small, handheld personal fans that could spray water. The kidlets loved them. When I say that approximately four solid hours were spent listening to them spray each other, turn the fans on, turn the fans off, blow air at their toys, and try to disassemble the dang things, that was actually a conservative estimate. Best eight bucks (each) I ever spent!

The good news is that we made it safely to our destination, and were rewarded by a set of grandparents doting on the kidlets. Huzzah for vacations!