Not My Favourite Vacation

Travel with four children under 6 is a challenge. But, we do take a few road trips each year to stay at my parents' house in upstate New York. For Patrick's March break this year, we decided to change things up a bit. My parents also have a house in Maryland, and we decided to trek further South to visit them there.

We have a good travel routine for the 6-hour journey to New York, so we decided to use the same basic routine two days in a row to go the additional 6-hours South to Maryland. We like to set off after an early dinner and hope that the kids fall asleep at a reasonable time. So, our plans were: drive to the house in New York on Friday night, continue on to Maryland on Saturday night and return with the same schedule the following weekend. My mother was already in Maryland, but my father would meet us in the middle and drive down with us on Saturday.

Packing for Andy, Patrick and myself is easy. We set things aside over the two or three days before a trip and are ready to go the morning of the trip. Packing for William, Jocelyn, and Michael is hard. A lot of what they need on the journey are things they use every day: security blankets, sippy cups, bedding, favorite toys and books, and that sort of thing.

Throughout the day of our departure, packing occurs as possible. When the kids have finished using something, it gets added to the pile - usually in a random bag, and often still needing to be washed. We order pizza for dinner and one adult works on packing the car while the other feeds the kids. At this point, Patrick is anxious to be on the road and the little ones have realized something is up and just want their normal bedtime routine. As soon as dinner is finished, the kids get packed into the car. Michael, William, and Jocelyn need to be in the car before we can finish putting the bags in because of the location of cargo space - the rear of the vehicle being entirely full with a triple stroller and various small bags in the spaces around the stroller. Once the kids are in, Andy and I run around the house and attempt to get the garbage out, the lights off, the heating turned down, and all the other last minute things that need to happen before leaving town. This time, one of our neighbors came over and helped out with the kids. Her help enabled us to get on the road at least 45 minutes earlier than if we had been on our own.

Patrick is always a trouper at this point. He knows that if he behaves, he will be allowed to watch a movie on the portable DVD-player before he is expected to sleep. For this vacation, he was given a new movie - an animated version of Roald Dahl's The BFG - and he was excited to watch it. (He ended up watching it on three of the four long car drives.)

For this drive, things were smooth. The border crossing was quick and easy. We stopped at our usual rest area to switch drivers and use the facilities. Jocelyn and William fell asleep early. Patrick fell asleep quickly after his movie. Michael didn't get enough sleep, but he was quiet. We arrived at our destination in good time. My mother and father had set up beds for all the kids in their usual rooms, so everything was set for going to bed upon arrival. Patrick slipped downstairs to his bedroom as soon as we arrived - hardly noticing the transition. The younger set had a quick run around when we unloaded the car and fell back to sleep quickly.

The next morning started ominously, with the two youngest boys climbing out of their travel cribs. The house in Maryland had never seen the triplets and Andy and I worried for the safety of the house and the kids. Nevertheless, we had an excellent day of rest - visiting my aunt and uncle on their new farm. Patrick was particularly pleased as he got a fabulous ride on their new ATV and saw bats.

We changed our minds about our travel plans and set off mid-afternoon with plans to stop for supper. During the little one's nap, the adults furiously packed up food, gates, and toys. The beds were packed up during the post-nap snack. We set off in two fully laden cars. Patrick rode the first leg of the journey with his grandfather and then moved into the family car after dinner. Stopping for dinner sounded good in theory, but the little ones were too excited to eat properly, so we had hungry toddlers later. My father headed off to Maryland, expecting to drive faster than us, with the travel beds for the four kids in his car. He did arrive before us and he and my mother set the beds up for the kids. Patrick had a little alcove next to our room and the little ones were in a room downstairs. So far, so good. Patrick went up to bed without trouble and the others were reluctantly put into their cribs for the night.

And then, William and Michael climbed out of their travel cribs. Jocelyn watched, learned, and joined them. Much later that same evening, they eventually fell asleep. We had taken the mattresses out of the cribs and created a pen around them into which we put the children one at a time, each one waiting until the previous one was asleep. When they were finally all asleep, Andy and I headed up to bed, exhausted. We were woken early in the morning by Patrick who had thrown up, and proceeded to be throw up again later in the morning.

So, we woke the following morning with one sick child - luckily, no longer vomiting - and three toddlers who could not be counted on to be safely contained at bedtime. We had a mellow day at home to help Patrick rest and busied ourselves making the downstairs room safe for climbing children. By the evening, we felt ready to face putting the little ones to bed in the now-safer room and Patrick was clearly weak but better.

And then, within minutes of each other, Jocelyn and William threw up - and continued to throw up for hours. When things seemed to have slowed down, all the kids beds were moved. The cribs were taken upstairs to be in with Andy and me, and Patrick's bed was taken downstairs. Michael went to sleep easily in his crib, and the other two slept some. There was more vomiting and Andy and I took turns with sick children in the bathroom. Shortly after 2 am, Michael joined the party and was sick as well. By this time, Andy and I were in the alcove between our room and the bathroom on the floor with the three toddlers, not wanting to move any further from the bathroom. The kids piled on the grown-ups and we all eventually fell asleep on the floor for a few hours of the best sleep of the night.

The following day, my mother came down with the bug, but the kids stopped throwing up. Jocelyn was extremely weak and William was hardly any better. Patrick was recovering, and Michael was acting as though nothing was really out of sorts. That night saw Andy sleeping on the bathroom floor by himself as he came down with it. The following night, it was my turn. One blessing: the heat was on the fritz and our room was incredibly hot, so the cool bathroom was actually the most comfortable temperature for sleeping. All in all, it was a mess. The one good thing about the little ones being sick is that they didn't bother climbing out of their cribs again.

By Thursday, everybody was in good enough shape that we were able to get to a local playground during the day and headed into Virginia to see some old friends for dinner. The one hiccup on the drive to Virginia was that my mother was not back from work yet and she had taken the car with Patrick's booster seat with her. So, we stopped at Toys R Us on the way out of town to buy a booster seat for Patrick. At Toys R Us, the backless booster seats were hiding and I had to ask Customer Service to help me find them. It was a pain, but we managed it and still got to our friends' house in good time.

Friday was a good day - another trip to the playground - but once again, full of packing. This time, my mother had taken a half-full car to the Metro station before she headed into D.C. for a meeting. She would head up to the New York house from there. Among the things she had was Patrick's bed. My father would carry the safety gates and the cribs. Andy and I took the kids and the rest of our things and would stop for supper on the way. My father left half an hour or so after us and finished cleaning up the house before coming out. My father drives faster than we do and stops less, so the expectation was that he would arrive in plenty of time to get the kids beds set up. As it was, my mother had awful traffic, my father got lost, and we made decent time. My father arrived with time to set up the cribs.

My mother was not there before us, so Patrick had no bed to slip into. But, she arrived within half an hour of us and the first thing we did was get Patrick to bed. In the morning, Patrick had no recollection of coming in from the car and being ushered to the sofa, where he lay down and slept until my mother arrived and the aerobed was inflated for him. He also had no memory of walking clumsily down the spiral staircase to get into bed.

On Saturday, we took a lovely walk in the woods and packed for the journey back to Toronto. We got on the road in good time after an early supper. Things looked good until we got into Buffalo. We just barely saw a sign that told us of a 1-2 hour wait at the Canadian border at the bridge we usually use. Luckily, we managed to figure out the route to a different bridge with a 0-30 minute advertised wait before the turnoff that committed us to the usual bridge. Andy, working with the map and the GPS navigation system, got us to the Fort Erie Bridge without trouble. And then began the wait at Customs, where I managed to pick the worst lane by about a 30-minute margin. There was trouble with the traffic pattern ahead of us and at least half a dozen cars weren't really in a lane and needed to merge into our lane. After Customs, there was another wait to get through the toll plaza for the bridge. Even so, we were through the back-up in less than the hour or more being advertised at the Lewiston bridge, so we were happy.

The rest of the journey was uneventful and the kids all went to bed pretty easily once we got home. It wasn't until the following night that William, and Michael took the experience they gained climbing out of the travel cribs and turned it into motivation to climb out of the full-size cribs at home. And so, a new adventure began as we started the process of getting them to sleep in proper beds.

We had a couple of good days in there, and it was nice to have my parents around when Andy and I got sick, but I have to say it was a vacation I would rather not repeat.