With summer approaching my inbox has exploded with three emails and one facebook message asking me for advice on traveling with small children. Specifically road trips.  Let's just skip to the conclusion for once and call it a post. Car travel with young children is just like childbirth (so painful during the process but you do it again) and requires a lot of patience.

We do travel often, especially by car, with three children. Just last month it took us sixteen hours of driving overnight to the happiest place on earth and nineteen straight hours back home. We have flown all three children across an ocean to Europe once. Every other month, for seven years, I've tackled the highway in-between Cleveland and Chicago for a trip that I've now gotten down to six-and-a-half hours, alone sans husband.

I've become such (read such dripping with sarcasm, please) an expert at the six-hour-road-trip I even managed to document it:

Now that we've established quasi impressive (read impressive dripping with sarcasm, please) credentials, let's talk road-trips.

1. Introduce long car travel, early on.

Home became the happiest place on earth, for us parents, after nineteen hours in a minivan with three children. We left Orlando at 6am and reached Cleveland at 1am. The only reason why my husband and I didn't divorce or strangle the children after that road-trip was because we've been doing some long distance car travels for awhile. Our children have been traveling since newborns. With just one infant we drove an hour into Amish country to antique shop regularly, with two small children we drove three hours to visit a children's museum on a day trip. Countless other nearby excursions helped us figure out our groove. By the time the third child came along, six-hour road trips were the norm. By now, the kids know what to expect. Don't interrupt the candy giver from reading her novel or no candy will be dealt.

2. Timing

For me, timing is the most important ingredient in road trips. If you have a child who naps, time your travel around their schedules so they sleep in the car. This was easier when all three of my children were younger and I placed them into the minivan shortly after lunch, all three asleep even before hitting the highway. Now that I have a first grader, kindergartner and a preschooler all of whom do not nap it's much harder. I make sure that whatever day we leave on, their schedules are jammed packed of exhausting activities. I do my best to keep the preschooler up and running around all day long, before I pick-up the school aged kids an hour before the dismissal bell.   Eight out of ten road-trips I have all three children sleeping.   I try and time our travels around rush hour. Timing. It's super important.

3. Potty

Consider yourself lucky if you have a child in diapers. Unfortunately for me, my children were potty trained before their second birthdays which caused for all kinds of trouble during road trips. I refuse to stop along the highway with a potty chair because when I was eight weeks pregnant with my first born we got into a horrible car accident on the Ohio turnpike. A driver fell asleep hitting our car, which was broken down on the highway shoulder, pushing us 90 feet. We were inside with our seat belts on. So.... no, I do not stop on the highway shoulder for a potty break. I do pull out a bottle for my son and strap on pull-ups for my daughters and force them to potty. In the case of #2 we stop at a rest stop. Now that the kids are older - they have more control - and prefer to wait. Godblessthemall.

4. Set goals

For yourself and for your children.  Two-and-a-half or three hours seems to be the breaking point for us where we need to stretch, even if for 10 minutes.  "In twenty minutes we will stop.  Stop kicking your sister."  We happily bribe our older children with a dollar to waste in the game room and happily splurge on a coffee/caffeine treat for the adults.  We set goals and remind each other that a break is around the corner.  Set short obtainable goals and never say "go to sleep now and when you wake up you will see palm trees."  Because your children will fight the sleep while searching for exotic trees.  Set short term goals, "In 30 minutes I will have a Starbucks cup in my hand."

5.  Snacks

We are healthy eaters while at home.  Our home is filled with fresh fruit for snacks and the occasional granola bar when on sale.  So when we hit the open road we spend the day before at the processed food aisle of our grocery store picking out very special treats.  Nothing is off limits.  Well, that's not entirely true, nothing that makes a complete mess.  The kids spend what seems an eternity carefully picking out their drug of choice.  It's a very exciting time.  When they were younger I had appropriate snacks packed in toddler cups to pass.  On top of their choices, I always freeze yogurt tubes beforehand and have individually wrapped snacks to throw at them, when needed.  And when I say throw, I really mean it.  I throw baggies of pretzels two rows behind me.

6.  Toys

Sandwich bags are not only good for food they are also good for mis-matched toys that entertain, like my good blogging friend Jennifer showed here.  I keep a tote bag full of toys-in-sandwich-bags in the passenger seat and toss back at the kids when deemed needed.  Granted all of them end up gracing the bottom of the minivan, those minutes of peace are priceless.

7.  Technology

I have this friend.  That drives to the east coast from Cleveland, sans husband, as much as I do to Chicago with three children.  Only it's apparent that she's a much better mom than I am because she does it without any technology.  None at all.  However, my three children are much more dramatic! lively! obnoxious! loud! expressive! than hers to say the least and require some sort of technology that tranforms them into zombies for the afternoon.  Because we travel so often with the kids, they do not play their Nintendo DSs and Leapsters until we travel.  They enjoy their games much more after a long absence.  We have an entry level cheap minivan that has no DVD system so we have to strap on TV screens when in dire straights.  Like after ten hours into our Disney trip when we finally discovered a RedBox.  Jesus, Mary and Joseph it's the best thing in DVD rentals ever (rent wherever and return wherever for $1 a night).  We've been hooked ever since.  Technology can be your friend.

8.  Paper & crafts & stuff

You can never have enough paper in the car to keep them busy.  Markers, crayons, coloring pages, stickers, scissors and paper.  I am super cheap and keep the restaurant coloring books/crayons hidden.   I travel with an enormous box of mismatched papers from random places filed in folders.  Each folder contains some stickers, puzzles, mazes, coloring sheets and whatever I can find.  One toddler ready.  One for the six-year-old.  And one more advance folder for the seven-year-old.  When in an emergency, just throw the age appropriate folder from the front seat to the kid in doubt.

9.  Breathe

In a perfect world a mother and father would re-invent the minivan to include one of those retractable bullet-proof windows as seen in limos to detach themselves from the background noise.  "Are we there yet?  Are we there yet, Mama?  Are we?  Are we?"  Alas not in our life-time.  So parents needs to breathe and exhale.  Repeat.  The best thing about road-trips is that there's an end.  Breathe.

10.   It's like child-birth

You swear you would never do it again.  But you do.  It's really not that bad afterall with the right techniques.

I would love to hear your road trip pointers...