I made myself a note in my previous post to reflect on the following things:
Behavior. My kids behavior was okay; with some subpar behaviors and some behaviors that were helpful, it balanced out. We were in the car for a while, and, of course, we were doomed to get sick of one another. They had to be disciplined quite a bit and constantly. That included stern looks, serious talk, and yes, yelling. Yelling while driving is not good. I had to focus on the road so yelling at the same time really took away from my focus. There was a moment where I actually pulled over, turned around and told them that, if they don’t stop, I’m gonna cause an accident since I couldn’t focus. In this sense, flying is easier.
Cost. The whole road trip cost $1,120. That includes gas, tolls, hotel rooms for two nights, all food (groceries we bought, restaurant meals, coffee stops, ice cream, other random dessert opportunities), and shopping (two prints from a local Outer banks artist; two Longwood Gardens puzzles, a mug, a book, two candles, and Family dollar stuff).
Mental health. This trip was harder on my mental health (full disclosure: no one to blame but myself) than other trips we’ve taken. I felt under a lot of pressure: to get us where we were going, safely, promptly, while having fun. I worried about driving, paying attention, managing behavior, playing eye spy, playing alphabet game, singing, fumbling with Spotify and Google maps, answering (good) questions, i.e. “why are outer banks called outer banks?” and “what is the state flower of [insert a US state]?” and “are we there yet?”
Managing all meals, supervising pool time, supervising beach time (much less pressure). Keeping the hotel room decent since I can’t relax unless my surroundings are somewhat orderly. We moved hotel three times.
Breakfast was always at our hotels, some meals we ate out, some meals were leftovers, and we had ramen twice which I made in a hot pot. All rooms had refrigerators and microwaves.
Positives. Kids were helpful with certain things: bringing stuff to the car, packing up their stuff, holding the door for me, each other and other people; making me and each other laugh.
Meeting and talking to a variety of people: at the beach, the pool, diners, coffee shops.
Nature and art. We got our fill of the beach, nature reserves, and botanical gardens.
Low key stuff: we watched Bluey together every morning, while I had coffee and the kids had milk. We dug holes in the sand. We sang. We played. We acted crazy. We splashed in a pool.
Hard. I honestly thought this trip would be cheaper. I felt a lot of mental pressure. The weather was cooler than I wanted. Lots of driving. Left my Kindle at home so didn’t do as much reading as I thought. And I did not get as much time for myself as I thought (duh). Other trips we’ve taken were easier. Or is it temporal bias? Some time has passed from those trips so the negatives are somewhat smoothed over. But this trip is still fresh in my mind.
Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates! We had our annual egg hunt, and it was adorable.
Mom of Children 