I stood in my PJs, coffee in one hand and phone in the other, stupefied. Our flights for the holidays had just disappeared into the ether as another low-cost airline hit the dust. Thankfully, not literally, but all the same this was a disaster. A quick look online confirmed that any available tickets would be vastly out of our reach.
As my coffee cooled in my hand, the terrifying realisation settled on me that getting to my parents in time for Christmas would involve an 18-hour cross-country road trip with our 5- and 7-year-old.
Why? Why!?
Before a state of existential dread took over, my husband and I had an emergency meeting and decided to try and spin this. We were now going to sell it to our children (and to ourselves) as a family adventure.
An (unplanned) (and unwanted) family adventure.
So here are 6 things that saved us from insanity.
1. Get your Pinterest on.
Even though the trip was weeks away, like a good girl scout, I started getting ready for the challenge ahead.
This is what Pinterest is for – to gather information and give moms everywhere a false sense of being in control.
2. Bribery, corruption & candy.
As with most travel in Africa, you are going to need to bribe someone.
Like all good parents, we couch bribery in terms such as “positive reinforcement”, and “incentives for motivation”, but we all know what it really is.
One Pinterest post mentioned making up small surprise packs that kids can open every couple hours. Basically, to stop them wailing “are we there yet” every 5 minutes, you give them sweets and presents.
I got to work buying small craft packs, Disney Pez Princesses, colouring books, stickers, pencils, bubbles and a vast array of other novelty nonsense. These I put into brown paper bags, ready to be marked with times for opening.
And it worked! Time is a fluid and largely elusive concept for kids. This gave them concrete milestones along the way that helped break up the trip into manageable portions.
3. Don’t be a hero. Take breaks.
When the road is long, and you have two children in the backseat, the people in the front seats also need something to look forward to. My husband and I decided we could manage a maximum of 8 hours of driving a day. I made sure to book us cute farm stays or B&Bs at the halfway mark on each leg of the journey. This was a total lifesaver.
We saw beautiful new parts of the country, had a good meal and a great night’s sleep, and each morning we felt (almost) ready to hit the road again. Sleep hits the reset button. This being said, about 5 minutes in we were already wondering how on earth we had gotten ourselves into this situation.
4. Don’t sweat the small, crumbly, stainy, drippy stuff.
Despite my best efforts, the back of our car looked like the site of a hurricane visit. Pretzel pieces, half-eaten nuggets and bits of paper covered everything. We stopped often to clear out rubbish, but it seemed to revert back to this state in a matter of minutes. My only advice in this situation is to stop caring.
5. Pro-tip – Backseat organisers.
There is the added challenge of finding some small toy that your child “CANNOT CONTINUE WITHOUT” in the midst of this wreckage. This is where Pinterest had another hack to save the day: backseat organisers.
You can import some wonderful versions of these with built-in iPad pouches and drink holders. We didn’t have the time or money for this. I used two sturdy shopping bags and looped them over the front seat headrests. This meant that both my children had somewhere to store their essentials and could find their stationery, activity books or snacks easily. It also stopped me from having to lean over my seat with my rear end in the air while looking for someone’s Ariel pencil.
6. Movies, glorious movies.
If someone had to ask me what single thing got us through this difficult time, I would say, unequivocally, screen time. Those girls lived their best lives. They watched so much TV that they were cross-eyed by the time we prised their devices out of their hands. But it kept us all sane and got us to our end destination in one piece.
To ensure that their viewing was never interrupted, we bought a multi-port USB charger that fitted into the cigarette lighter of our car. This allowed us to charge multiple devices at once.
Happy ending?
Was it worth it? Yes, it was. We had a wonderful holiday with our extended family of Dordor and Gumpy, cousins, guinea pigs, chickens and rabbits. Was it hard to get everyone back into the car for the 18 hours home? Hell, yes. Will we do it again? Hell, no. We are busy working hard on our gym visits so that we never again have to endure a family adventure of this magnitude.
