Lessons from the road

I have been practicing amateur yoga for quite a few years. I love the benefits of yoga but one thing that I have never understood is how yoga teaches you to "be in the moment".

This week, my family and I went on a road trip. I am not sure if it was the yoga or if it was the small, confined space with six people that helped me to "be in the moment". There were many situations that required all of us to "be in the moment" or it could have adversely affected the rest of our trip. I think what I may have learned from our road trip is that "being in the moment" requires preparation as much as it requires flexibility!!!

Here are some other things I learned that made our road trip successful:

1) Whisk the children out of bed early in the morning and put them in the car in their pajamas. They imagine that we are doing something sneaky, like the VonTrap family escaping Germany. Even with sleep in their eyes, they have grins on their faces. It may be that they still have one foot in Dreamland, but that is part of our plan.

At the end of the first leg, we stopped at a rest stop - or "dress stop," as Olivia refers to it, and get the children in their traveling clothes. I did not make my children's traveling clothes out of curtains, but the option is there for next time.

2) Pack your own food. We packed breakfast and lunch and then we were able to stop at a park or a "dress stop" to play. We ate donuts and fruit for breakfast and sandwiches and chips with juice boxes for lunch. The kids enjoyed this much better than having mom and dad frustrated while sitting in a restaurant after traveling in the car for hours on end. It was a good stress release for all of us. I researched parks online in the cities where we would be at the designated times. I found one close to the freeway so that we didn't have to spend our travel time searching for a park.

3) Plan games, games and more games. I have always been apprehensive to take a trip without the DVD player. I have wondered many times how my parents ever did a road trip with all of their children ("Do I need to pull this car over?") but I also hate how my children look like zombies when we arrive at the destination because they have not blinked the entire road trip. This time I decided that I would try the trip with limited DVD time.

I tried to remember the things my family did when we would road trip when I was young. I also printed some games for the kids to play such as scavenger hunts, car BINGO, Battleship, Tic-Tac-Toe, etc. My favorite was Battleship because it required A LOT of time and we all enjoyed it.

The DVD player came out after lunch but that was nearly eight hours into our trip so we were due for a change of pace. It was a great break, the kids quieted down again and the last bit of the trip was relatively relaxing.

All in all, it was a great road trip. We enjoyed the time we had together and I am hoping that my children will be inspired to torture their own children by taking them on road trips!!!