MomsTalk: Survival Guide to Spring Break Trips

Are we there yet, Mom? Spring break for Fairfax County Schools is next week. That means thousands of McLean families will be boarding planes, trains and automobiles as they head to locations near and far in search of rest, relaxation and family fun. Anyone who has traveled with children knows that just successfully arriving at your destination can be more than half the battle. The McLean Patch Moms share their travel successes and failures .

Alison Senold, McLean resident, married, mother of two boys.

One of the first times I took my oldest son on an airplane, he was only 9 months old. I actually boarded the plane  for our long international flight with little  in my carry-on bag to entertain him beyond  a tooth brush, a package of shoelaces and a couple of books. I assumed he would sleep through most of the overnight flight, but I ended up reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear and chasing him as he crawled up and down the aisle of the plane for nearly 8 hours. I don’t remember much else from that trip, except that there was a hilarious (in hindsight) incident involving his first experience with pureed prunes. But since he is almost in middle school now, he has forbidden me to tell that story anymore.

In spite of my early mistakes (my youngest son STILL occasionally talks about the beloved blankie we left on a fight to Palm Springs in 2008), both my boys have grown into really good travelers. I’ve used different strategies at different ages. They used to cram their rolling backpacks full of crayons, paper, books , snacks and small toys the night before a trip. Then we graduated to a portable DVD play. This was especially useful on car trips since we could plug it in. Before you take a DVD player on a plane make sure you have enough battery life and/or a back-up battery (learned that the hard way ,too). Now, the boys travel with little besides their Nintendo DS’s , a book and some snacks (always, always have snacks!)