My Orlando Road-Trip With My Three Kids – Things You Just Can’t Plan For

Everyone thought I was crazy when I said we were driving to Orlando with the three kids. That’s 18 hours trapped in a car with children that have the attention span of a gnat. I figured if my fiancée could live through this he could basically put up with anything.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m a “veteran” mom or the fact that I didn’t have to worry about getting everything into one tiny suitcase to avoid extra luggage charges by the airlines, but I was pretty relaxed about packing and planning. And I’m definitely learning to roll with the punches more. But I also learned that as much as you do plan, things come up that you’d never expect!

I really thought I had everything covered, Band-AIDS, children’s medicine, Neosporin, even ice packs. But, what you can’t plan on is the strep throat that one child gets along the way and the hives the other one gets. So, thank goodness I had listened to my own advice and gotten the name of a pharmacy ahead of time and begged my pediatrician to call in some prescriptions. As a mother of three, you can spot strep a mile away and no, I don’t need a test!

I thought I’d covered everything at home too. I set my ADT Pulse home monitoring system to turn the lights off and on at different times on different days, set the thermostat lower down and even shut the water off for the washing machine. But, halfway through New Jersey I realized that we had forgotten to put out the really, really stinky garbage to be picked up. This is when I realize how convenient wireless monitoring systems are – I could call my neighbor, disarm my alarm system and let him go into the garage and get the garbage and then rearm the system. Then my friend called and told me that we got an unexpected snowstorm, four inches and climbing. I was concerned about the roof after the last storm and just had a bad feeling. She was kind enough to offer to do a check on the house, so I disarmed the system again to allow her access. And, my fears came true, this storm turned out to be the tipping point for our roof and water was dripping in through the light fixtures! I immediately got on the phone with my landlord. He was able to send people over to fix it, but I was really uncomfortable having workers in my home when I wasn’t there. But it had to be fixed. So, once again I had my neighbor go into the house and move my wireless cameras so they were focused on the areas the workers would be fixing. Through the system I was able to have the camera on at all times and take random photos. Whether I watched them the entire time or not, they were aware that a camera was on them.

We stopped halfway to Orlando overnight in North Carolina. That was an interesting experience as well. I always recommend that people with kids stay in rooms on the first floor so there’s no concern about terraces and balconies but what I never considered is when your hotel gets locked down because some jealous guy with a gun is going to each hotel in the area looking for his wife who he thinks is cheating on him. You just can’t make this stuff up. So now, along with the door alarm, the emergency evacuation plan and baby proofing a hotel room I guess I have to consider safety tips for crazed husbands.

So, my lessons from this road trip:

• Random things such as hives can and will happen so make sure you find a doctor and pharmacy nearby.
• People might have to come into your home in case of an emergency so have the ability to disarm your alarm system and also monitor what’s going on.
• Keep hotel room doors double-locked and pack a portable alarm to use for the door.
• Check the booster seat laws in every state you drive through. Your child might not be required to use a booster seat at home but on the road you might have to.

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