A year after being sidelined with excruciating shin splints, I have started running again.  I am not a particularly good runner – my kids liken me to a snail – and I don’t enjoy the act of running; however, it is great at burning calories and easing stress.  As we plan our vacation I am wondering when (and if) running will be included.

Before kids, it was easy to exercise on vacation – a few hours swimming in the pool or running on the beach were easy to fit into the schedule.  Now that I need it even more, it has become quite a challenge.   Lap pools are non-existent in European city hotels and I always worry about safety when running in unfamiliar cities.  But the real hurdle I face is guilt.  I feel guilty “wasting” vacation time by working out and I feel guilty leaving my husband with the kids while I do something by myself.

Advice, anyone?

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Summer is only – gasp – five school days away.  I love the unstructured fun of summer but also worry about keeping the kids entertained.  Here are some suggestions from my six year old’s teacher, Ms. Suzanne Pollard:

• Get a library card and visit the library weekly.  Create cozy forts with the kids and spend long afternoons reading.  Have reluctant readers?  Let them see you enjoying reading in your own fort; it just might spark their interest.
• READ!! Everyone loses skills over the summer but with young readers this is especially true.  Don’t let that happen!  Use the weekly library visits to find a variety of rich, pleasurable read aloud and independent reading books.
• Write.  Keep a journal, write letters, draw, send postcards to your friends.  Make grocery lists, camping lists, packing lists – you get the idea.   Going on a trip?  Use our free travel journal to keep a record of the trip.  Travel Journal
• Find everyday ways to play with numbers.  Play games like Yahtzee, let the kids count change or practice with flash cards.  Learn measurements by helping with dinner or baking cookies.
• Once a week plan a fun local trip – visit the zoo, children’s museum, local park – anything new and different.
• Create grab bags for the kids with a collection of supplies that encourage creativity – a few that we use:
  - Plastic bowls, paint brushes & a box of food coloring
  - Paper, tape and several pennies
  - Modeling clay & cookie cutters
  - Hole punch, paper, markers and yarn
• Don’t over schedule.  Big blocks of unscheduled time are essential for developing creativity and independence.
• Have a family passion project that interests everyone – sew, garden, bake, watch the stars, build a fort… you get the idea.
• READ!

What summer fun activities do you have planned?

staycation · summer activities · summer fun

Packing lists are the bane of my blogging existence.  Every good travel blog has lists for every occasion.  Somehow, I can’t manage to pull one together that is remotely publishable.  My friends find this amusing since I make lists for everything – including my personal packing.   I find lists, including packing lists, to be personal and I cannot figure out how to generalize them- I mean, just because I need to pack 15 snuggle blankets for my 2 year old doesn’t mean they should be on your list.   Plus, it is these very things that only you know that can make or break the trip!

Lately I find myself perusing the lists in search of packing wisdom related to the number of outfits I should pack for a 14 day vacation.  The guidance seems to run from a minimum of 2 per day up to 4.   Four outfits per day seems excessive but is just one per day enough – if I throw in a few extras?  Perhaps I should “pack light” and plan on doing laundry?   Pardon me as I brainstorm through the options…

Two outfits per day is 28 outfits times 4 kids is 112 outfits.  Add in 60 or so pairs of pjs, panties, socks and shoes and I am well over my suitcase limit (not to mention that I’m not sure I actually have 28 outfits per kid).  Next option, please…

Packing light – with four kids?  That just isn’t going to happen.   Hotel cleaning is too expensive to use unless we are in dire straits and I really can’t imagine spending a day of my vacation in a European laundry mat washing clothes.  One site suggested taking detergent and washing clothes in the sink.  Admitedly, I have done that before but only for clothes that were so stained or smelly that they couldn’t make it home.  It is humorous to imagine trying to hang the laundry of 4 kids in a hotel room!  Next option….

That leaves me with packing between 14 and 20 outfits per child and washing if we run out or maybe even buying a few new outfits.  If I pack efficiently, I should be able to fit everything for the girls in 2 large suitcases with a duffel for their gear.

What works for your family on long vacations?  Do you pack a lot of clothes or do laundry?

packing

Experiencing new things is the highlight of most foreign vacations – unless you have kids.  Kids thrive on routines and disruptions in bedtimes, naps or meals can lead to chaos.  With my picky eaters, it is meal time that presents the biggest challenge when we are visiting a new country.  I know the adage that they will eat when hungry but the hours of whining and tears that precede that moment are best endured at home, not while on vacation.

Kids in the US are spoiled by the ubiquitous kid’s menu with its staple list of chicken nuggets, grilled cheese and hamburgers.  The kid’s menus abroad, if they exist, tend to feature favorites from the local cuisine.  It is more common for kids to be served smaller portions off the standard menu.  Tourist restaurants may offer you an “American kid’s menu” but that is, experience has shown, best avoided.  The familiar staples – marginal at best in the US – are not edible elsewhere.  Plus, part of the trip is about trying new things.

I sometimes feel like I am balancing on a tightrope between avoiding a food meltdown and pushing the kids to try new things.  As we prepare for our trip to Prague, London and Dublin; I have picked up the balancing bar and started the walk.  Every country has its stereotype food (think rice in China or pasta in Italy) and we exploit that to no end.  We talk about what will be on the menu, find local restaurants featuring that cuisine and make some at home.   The goal is to make a new menu not quite so foreign.  Frankly, it helps the rest of us as well!  We learn a little about the country’s standard dishes and, more importantly, what to avoid.

The next step is to start enforcing the family rule of trying two bites of every new food.  Day to day cooking is not my favorite and I fall into the routine of serving food the kids will eat without much argument (not to mention that by dinner time, the last thing I want is an argument about the food!).  In the weeks preceding a trip, I start mixing things up by adding a new or different side dish (a green vegetable, for example).  By the time we go on the trip, the kids are used to something new on the plate and will sometimes even taste it.

When all else fails, we always have our jar of peanut butter and crackers in the suitcase.

happy travels!

General Travel With Kids

Weather have you trapped inside?  Try these fun things to keep kids entertained.

Color Experiments

Supplies:  Food coloring, plastic bowls, water

Play with color – have the kids experiment and create the secondary and tertiary colors using drops of food coloring.  Add some Cool Whip for even more color fun!

The Quiet Game

Supplies: Watch with a second hand

Ever hear yourself say, “Can you stop talking for one minute?”  Make it into a game.   Tell everyone to count, in their heads, to sixty and yell out their name when they think a minute has past.  Meanwhile, a timekeeper monitors the clock and makes note of who yells their name closest to the actual minute.  This works best if small prizes are awarded to the winner each round.

The Animal Alphabet Game

This game works for kids of ages but younger ones might need a little assistance with the letters.  Begin the game with the letter A.  The first person thinks of an animal – “ant” for example.  The next player must think of an animal that begins with the last letter of the previous answer (“T”) in the example.  No repeating animals or taking too long, of course.  There are lots of variations but a favorite for traveling is to use names of places and use the road signs along the way to offer prompts.

Create a Taste Test

Supplies: 5-10 different foods or spices, blindfolds, paper, pencils

A popular baby shower game, this can be fun for the entire family!  One person secretly prepares the foods/spices on plates.  Everyone else dons blindfolds and quietly tries to guess the foods and writes down their guesses on the paper provided.  The writing doesn’t need to be neat, as long as you can read it.

Make it Snow

Supplies: Flour, shifter, jelly roll pan or craft try, small animals or legos.

This is a huge hit with toddlers but can be messy so supervision is a must.  Have the child create a city (or jungle) using small plastic animals or buildings.  Fill the sifter with flour and let them make it snow on the town.  Let them play in the “snow” and repeat as often as necessary.

Play with Tissues

Supplies: One box of tissues per child

My husband hates this game and I only use it as a last resort but it works like a charm every time.  Give the kids a box of tissues and let them pull them out one by one.  Yes it is wasteful but sometimes a mom has to do what a mom has to do.

That’s enough of my ideas for now.  What are some of your favorite rainy day or travel games?

Entertaining Kids on the Go · General Travel With Kids