Sprouts En Route - Travel for parents and children, the fun way.

by Kristin on May 15th, 2012 No Comments

Taking Your Kids To A Dinner Party

Yesterday I got an email from a friend inviting us over to her place, and in it she mentioned that since her and her husband don’t have kids yet, they don’t have a lot of things for our girls to do over there. This was a very thoughtful thing to mention, and it got me thinking about our family strategy for dinner parties, no matter what country we are currently in.

Whether you are traveling to a far away destination, or only a few minutes to a new friend or colleague’s house for dinner with your children, there are things you can do as a parent to be prepared.

Crayons, a parent's modern day super hero!

The first thing you need to do is find out if it is an adults only dinner, or your children are invited. If your children are not invited, you will need to find a sitter, or decline the invitation.

Side note: It is ok to decline a dinner invitation if someone does not want to be around your kids. You probably will not always be able to find a sitter. In addition, your kids are part of your family, and if you feel like someone isn’t willing to accept the fact that you have kids, well then they need a reality check. Maybe you saying no will be that check for them. I’m not saying your friends should be ok with you always bringing your kids with you everywhere when they just want some adult time with you, but they should not expect you to act like you do not have kids when you are around them.

But, for the purposes of this article, you find out that your kids are invited. Awesome!

Think about the place you have been invited to, do they have any kids? Are their kids around the same age as yours? If they have children the same age as yours, you probably don’t need to bring toys along with you. If they have much older, or much younger children I would go ahead and bring stuff to entertain your kids. If they have no children, definitely think about things to bring!

Why should I bring things for my kids to play with to someone else’s house?

Well the answer is simple, bored kids are more likely to misbehave, and can you blame them? There is nothing for them to do! Children are not made to sit around for long periods time holding still and keeping silent, especially if it is late and they are tired. Remember that if you are pushing a child too far out of their ability to behave by taking them to a place that isn’t set up for them, or pushing them past their limits of energy and composure that you (or me, or any adult that is responsible for the children) are the ones to blame, not the children. As a general rule Travis and I don’t discipline our children past 9 pm. By then, they just don’t have the ability to discern what is right and what is wrong. They are tired.

By providing your children with something to do or play, you are helping them choose to have better behavior. Really, to be honest, you are distracting them, which is not a bad thing. It will give you time to have an actual adult conversation while the children are playing (although I can’t guarantee that it will be an uninterrupted conversation, lol).

What things should I bring for my kids to play with at someone else’s house?

Unless you want to bring a big bag of things, try to think about things that will fit into an oversized purse. That’s what I do. Here are a few options:

-Coloring, a timeless hobby for kids all over the world. I make little coloring books out of half sheets of paper folded in half, and bring a couple of crayons that are secured with a rubber band and folded into a paper towel so I don’t get crayon marks all over the inside of my purse (I have kind of an obsession with purses and keeping them nice… hey, no one is perfect!).

Recently on Pinterest I saw someone turned a DVD cover into a drawing pad with paper on one side and color pencils secured by a piece of ribbon glued across the other side. It’s a compact and nifty idea.

-Hot wheels. They don’t have to be the original version of course, but girls and boys love playing with small toys that have wheels. We also have some animals that have wheels on them that I always keep with me. Our favorite is the moose, he has real character.

-An iTouch, iPad, iPhone, Android, or any other small device that can hold games or movies. We have an iTouch (check out this article) that we keep a few movies on along with the girls’ favorite games. Movies work great for dinner nights because they are tired and usually just want to vegetate. We can usually get an hour of quiet time out of one of these while we talk with our hosts.

-DVDs. Find out your host has a DVD player in a place that is out of the way of the dinner party, and if they do bring one or two DVDs along. If you are in a different country, just make sure you bring the right region of DVD or it won’t play in their player.

-A mini version of their favorite bedtime stuffed animal. If you have small children that are attached to particular objects, it is easier to carry around a travel version of that object then to hear them crying over it when they get tired. I have personally experienced this enough times that we finally started taking a small version of Kati’s penguin, Waddles, with us when we go somewhere and know we will be gone late. I only wish Travis or I had thought of this solution sooner!

-Any other small, low maintenance item that your child likes to play with that doesn’t make a lot of noise, or cause a lot of damage.

I hope this helps and gives you a little bit of quiet adult time at your next dinner invitation. Try to remember how much you enjoy your children, and that other people are going to enjoy them too if you model the right attitude towards your kids (one of joy and not of annoyance).

As far as getting your kids to eat whatever is served to them at this dinner party… well that’s a whole different post!

Happy Travels!

Kristin

by Kristin on May 11th, 2012 No Comments

A Day At The Beach

Yesterday when we were driving home from our mommy group there was a man with flippers strapped to the back of his motor bike, a towel under his bottom, and his swimming trunks were dripping from the swim he had just taken. Here in Athens, it is officially swimming weather, and today I want to talk about taking a day trip to the beach.

Growing up in Southern California, the beach has always been an extremely fond summer memory. Now that we live near an ocean again, Travis and I have made it a priority to make this free and fun destination a pleasant memory for our girls as well. But if you want to have truly enjoyable days resting on the shore while your little ones build sand (or in our case, pebble) castles, there are a few things you need to think about in order to maximize fun and reduce sunburn and fatigue.

The girls enjoying the sand at Thassos Beach last summer.

If you carefully select high quality items you should be able to use them over and over again for several summers to come, so don’t always buy the cheapest beach stuff you can find. This is especially true when it comes to beach chairs! We have had so many break. Of course it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot on beach toys, which will inevitably break no matter what you do. If you are planning on making the beach a regular destination, take time to think about which items you really want to invest in, and which ones are not as high of a priority on your list.

Here are the 10 things you should consider taking for a day at the beach:

1. A Cooler. This is a perfect place to keep your water and snacks. Remember that keeping hydrated while at the beach is going to make a huge difference when it comes to fighting off that beach drain that can so easily occur.

2. Sunscreen. I cannot emphasize the importance of sunscreen enough, especially when it comes to young children and chromatically challenged people such as myself (yes, that’s just another way of saying I’m super white). In fact, here is a whole article about the stuff and how to use it properly.

3. Sun hats. This is especially important for the kids, although Travis and I wear them too. It helps not to have your head beat down by the sun all day, plus our kids are blonde and fair, and tend to get sunburnt on their heads if we don’t try to keep the hats on for most of the day.

4. An Umbrella. You need one of these for the same reason you need a sun hat, to escape the intense rays of the sun. If you are planning on being at the beach all day, it is really important to have part of that time out of direct rays. Now there are even nifty umbrellas with SPF built in.

5. Towels and mats. For laying down, drying off, and relaxing of course. I usually lay down while the kids are playing on the shore. If they are in the water, I am in the water with them the whole time, since they are both still small and haven’t mastered swimming.

6. Snacks and water. I already mentioned these in the cooler area of this post, but they are worth mentioning again. Stay hydrated and take time out for a snack. This will be especially important to your kids, because trust me, if they are playing at the beach, they are working up an appetite!

7. Beach chairs. We can usually get away with one or two, and take turns sitting in it. It’s nice to get up off of the floor for a little bit. It’s also a great place to have the kids take turns eating because they are less likely to scoop a handful of sand into their sandwich if they are slightly elevated up off of the ground.

Optional Items:

8. Water shoes. Since our beaches have pebbles instead of sand, water shoes are an absolute must if we don’t want to end up with raw feet. There are also a lot of sea urchins in the water that we all want to avoid stepping on.

9. Swimmies. If you are going to be somewhere without a lot of waves, swimmies can be extremely fun. Just make sure you are always with your children when they are in the water, because swimmies don’t prevent against drowning. In fact you have to be more careful if your children are using them because it gives them a false sense of security. I do not recommend flotation devices for children where there is some surf. It is best for you to hold onto your kids, and to make sure not to go out too deep in this type of water situation.

10. Insect repellant. Depending on where you are, bugs may or may not plague you. When we were visiting Thassos Island in Northern Greece I wish I would have had some kind of repellant because the bees there were very aggressive and kept landing on me and the kids, not to mention the mosquitoes that were out at dusk.

So there you have it, a comprehensive list of things we take to the beach with us when we are planning on staying all day (which we usually do).

May your summer be filled with many beach (or lake) days this year.

Happy travels!

Kristin

by Kristin on May 8th, 2012 No Comments

Potty Training: The Finish Line

This is the final post in the Potty Training Series, to catch up on the other articles in their series, please check out the SER Series page.

You’ve spent weeks refining potty time with your little one. You have tested their abilities to communicate and control their tiny bladders by going out on short trips (or day trips with a travel potty). You understand that accidents happen and that potty training is a process that takes time. But when will this process be over? Where is the finish line?

Personally, I believe that the finish line for potty training comes when your little one can get on the toilet, go, wipe, flush, and wash their hands all by themselves when at home. According to this definition of successfully completed potty training, it can take between 3 months to a year. Don’t let this discourage you, because potty training is something you only have to complete with each child once. Of course, I still have to remind my 5 year old to go potty before naps, leaving the house, and bedtime, but that’s because she’s 5. I also have to remind her to brush her teeth and put away her crayons when she is finished coloring.

Remember that setbacks are going to happen. Last night at 8:00 pm, while we had a guest over, Kati snuck into her room and proceeded to drink her full water bottle along with her sisters. I wasn’t surprised when she woke me up at 5:00 am this morning all wet with a soaked bed to match.

The most important thing in potty training is to establish a pattern of behavior, so keep going, be consistent, and I promise it is going to pay off in the end.

I hope you enjoyed this series, as it was extremely interesting to write and experience personally. If anyone has any tips they would like to share on potty training boys, I would love to post those and hold onto them myself as we are expecting to add a little boy to our family sometime in July.

As always, happy travels!

Kristin

by Kristin on May 5th, 2012 No Comments

A Traveling Lesson From Aesop

We have a book of Aesop’s Fables that we read to the girls every once in a while. There are some stories that I leave out, but one that has become particularly true in my life lately is the story called, “The Old Man, the Boy, and the Donkey.” It’s about a man and his son taking his donkey to the market. Along the way people keep complaining about the man, whether he is on the donkey, his son is on the donkey, both of them are riding him, or no one at all. Finally, him and his son pick up the donkey in a final attempt to please all of the grumbling people. While struggling to carry the donkey on a pole, the donkey falls off of a bridge and drowns. The moral of this story reads: “Please all, and you will please none.” In the end the donkey is lost, and still no one is pleased.

But this is travel blog, not a donkey or a literature blog, so let me get to my point in bringing this up in relation to travel. When you are traveling with others, especially your family, you need to take everyone’s opinion into account. I have talked about that before. But you also need to realize that you may not find a plan that is everyone’s favorite. That’s ok! You are the adult and ultimately the decision lies with you. Just remember that your job in life isn’t to make everyone happy, even on vacation. Do the best you can. That’s all you can do. And remember that in the end, it is the attitude of the participating family members or friends that will determine the amount of fun they have. When reading this fable by good ol’ Aesop, it is obvious that all of the grumbling people passing by were not having a good attitude about the man, his son, and the donkey. They were looking for a reason to complain, and there is nothing you can do to change that if someone has already determined to feel that way.

Keep in mind that figuring out the best travel plan for your group isn’t an exact science. Do your best to plan things out, and remember that you can’t please everyone 100% of the time.

Happy Travels!

Kristin

by Kristin on May 2nd, 2012 No Comments

Summer Time Is Here!

Welcome to Summer! Well, it many not feel like summer where you are at yet, but in Athens it definitely does. Yesterday was May Day, and even now the girls are in their bedroom trying on their bathing suits in preparation for the ocean warming up (hopefully any day now). With that in mind, I wanted to do a compilation of articles I wrote last summer about dealing with some of summer’s most interesting problems. I also added a few for all of you out there that are in the planning stages of your summer vacation!

Summer Time Travel Tips

Mission SPF – How to use sunscreen to ward off damage to your family’s skin

Don’t Let Them Bug You – Different bug repellant options to keep off those pesky pests

The Physical Demands Of Traveling – How to prepare for the physical part of going on a trip

Packing 101 – How to pack your suitcase efficiently (with video!)

Day Tripper - How to pack your diaper bag for a day trip

… and of course, if you are going on a road trip this summer, don’t forget to check out the Ultimate Family Road Trip series for lots of fun tips.

Are there any articles you would like me to write about in specific regards to summer? Shoot me an email at sproutsenroute@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Happy Travels!

Kristin

by Kristin on April 27th, 2012 No Comments

Potty Training: Tidy Tots Potty Chair Liners Review

This post is part of the Potty Training Series, to see more posts from this series, check out the SER Series page.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email from Dinah over at Tidy Tots, a company that makes disposable potty chair liners so you don’t have to deal with the fun job of washing out your potty chair after your little one uses it. She asked me if I thought it would be something that might interest all of you traveling parents out there, and shipped me a box of 16 liners to try out for myself.

It was perfect timing because I had been thinking about what to do on an upcoming road trip where I knew we wouldn’t be able to stop and find a toilet as often as Kati might need one. So we bought a little potty chair at Ikea for 3 euros and voilà, a travel potty for Kati.

Unfortunately, the package didn’t get here until after our road trip, but that’s ok… Kati decided she wanted to test out her travel potty on our front balcony for all of the neighbors to see, hahaha. The bag doesn’t fit completely over the Ikea potty because there isn’t a separate pot area like on a lot of other kids potty chairs, but it still worked great. We just made sure the front was covered because that is where “stuff” is likely to escape from. The coolest thing about this product is the little absorbent pad that comes with each individual bag that will last up to 3 potty times. The bag also has a draw string around the edge so it is easy to dispose of.

I plan on putting the potty and the box of liners in my car and leaving them there in case we are out and need a quick potty break. When we travel to the US I am going to bring my box along for our road trip from California to Colorado.

Overall it is an interesting idea, and I know it would benefit a lot of parents who get grossed out by dealing with cleaning out potty chairs. I specifically think this would be awesome for a pregnant friend dealing with morning sickness and potty training at the same time! One box of 16 liners and absorbent pads costs $7.99 (USD). I don’t know if I would actually purchase this product for home use myself, because we put Kati on the normal toilet, but I will definitely be using it as part of my travel potty system. This is a clever product to keep in mind!

For more information on Tidy Tots and their Disposable Potty Chair Liners, check out their website here: http://tidytots.com

Happy travels!

Kristin

Tidy Tots provided me with a free sample of their Disposable Potty Chair Liners in order for me to review them for the lovely readers of Sprouts En Route.

by Kristin on April 24th, 2012 2 Comments

Pedestrians Beware!

Hey everyone! Today I wanted to post about a major difference in behavior across different cultures, and that behavior is how pedestrians are treated. In the USA the pedestrians always have the right of way, that means that if you are in a car or on a bike, you had better do your best to yield for pedestrians (even if they are jaywalking).

A father and daughter getting ready to use a crosswalk in Budapest, Hungary.

In Europe and Asia, that is simply not the case. As a pedestrian, it is your job to get out of the way of cars, who do not go out of their way to avoid hitting you. As far as Greece is concerned, the driving is crazy. I have never lived in such an insane driving atmosphere (in fact I haven’t even started driving here yet and we’ve been here for over a year). However, I have noticed that Greek drivers are willing to yield to pedestrians in two situations. The first is if the woman crossing the street is obviously pregnant (a new observation I have been able to make) and the second is if the person crossing the street has small children with them. Last year my father in law traveled to several different Asian countries and said that he was almost hit by several vehicles, mostly motorbikes.

I’m not trying to scare you out of walking anywhere when you go on a trip. I’m just trying to make you aware that you need to be more careful when you are walking in a different country. That way you can avoid getting hurt. This is especially important if you are traveling to the UK, New Zealand, and Australia where you will need to look the opposite way before crossing the street (Travis learned this the hard way on a trip with his father before we got married and was almost hit by a car…). There are other countries with left-hand traffic as well including Cyprus (really close to us), India, and Pakistan among others.

So remember that old saying when you are a pedestrian in another country,

“Look before you leap,”

and be especially careful with your young ones.

Happy Travels!

Kristin

by Kristin on April 20th, 2012 No Comments

PressReader: Keep Up With Current Events While You Travel

Happy Friday everyone! Last week I got an email from Ray over at PressReader asking me if I would be interested in reviewing their newspaper app. He said that it might be something that my readers would be interested in hearing about, since most of them are usually hopping from place to place. The set up was painless, and when I got the app up and running, I was really impressed. As most of you know, I live in Athens, Greece, and it has been a year and a half since I’ve been back to my home country, the USA. When I opened PressReader I saw something I hadn’t seen since we left Los Angeles, a complete American Newspaper!! That’s right, it’s just like having a traditional newspaper, with all the adds, the comics, and different pages organized in a familiar way. I like it so much better than looking through the newspaper websites (which is what I normally do). Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the individual pages with the bold headings and the easy to follow flow of a traditional paper. If you want to hone in on a specific article for bigger text and an easier read, all you have to do is click on the headline which is conveniently highlighted in blue. It also has a lot of different countries and languages on it. I was able to find a few Greek newspapers, and one also had it’s English counterpart right next to it. In fact, when I loaded it on my iPad, it figured out where I was and brought up a bunch of Greek papers. With 2,100 periodicals spanning 95 different countries in 54 languages, there are a lot of choices.

Two of the various different views on the iPad: whole page, or single article.

I don’t know if this is public knowledge, but I’m about tell you, so now it will be. My husband, Travis, is a news-a-holic. He spends at least 30 minutes every day keeping up with local news and also following his beloved Anaheim Angels (no… I’m not going to call them the other name because it’s just ridiculous, all you Halo fans know what I’m talking about). When Greek people make comments about local events, he can contribute to the conversation because he knows what is going on. As foreign missionaries, it is extremely important for us to know what things are happening in the country we live in. At the same time we try to keep up with current events back in the US so we can be informed as citizens, and because Greek people are always curious to know what we think about what is going on in our home country (although to be honest we try to have as little of a public opinion on that as possible to avoid conflict). Travis also tested this app for me and he loved it! He even posted a funny comic he read on Facebook after viewing it in PressReader.

I can see PressReader being particularly useful for traveling because you can get your hometown news along with important and relevant news from the place you are visiting. It is always good to be aware of what is going on in the country you are traveling to.

Now down to the nitty gritty, how much does this app cost? Well, if you want access to all 2,100 newspapers, you are going to pay $29.99 (USD) a month. Would I pay that much for newspaper access a month? No, I wouldn’t personally because it’s just not in our budget at the moment (nothing personal, I still love this app, but food and rent come first). But if I lived in the US, owned an iPad, iPhone, Android or other compatible device, I would definitely rather pay for this app instead of subscribing to one physical, local paper. The appeal of being able to read news in other countries is extremely attractive to me! There is also the option of purchasing a single paper at a time for around $0.99… and that seems more my style. I could buy a paper once a week and only spend $4 a month and be pretty well informed.

So here’s the big question… would I recommend this app to you, the traveling reader? Yes, absolutely. It is a really cool app, and I feel like it would enrich your trip by helping you keep up with current events while you are traveling around. Not to mention the display on the iPad is sweet, for all you iPad owners out there.

So now let me hit you up with the appropriate links in case you want to investigate this impressive product further:

iTunes Store (for iPhone or iPad): Here you go

Official PressReader Website: Check it!

Happy Travels (and reading)!

Kristin

Note: PressReader provided me with a free trial version of this app in order for me to review it for you, my lovely readers.

by Kristin on April 17th, 2012 No Comments

The Perceived Reality Of A Parent

I have been wanting to write an article about this for a while, and today I had a trigger that prompted me to go ahead and get it written down and out of my head. What was the prompt, you might ask… well it was a large cup of soda and ice spilled all over my lap at Ikea. But let’s back up and I’ll return to the cold, sticky lunch time debacle in a minute.

When you are the parent of a small child, you see the world in a different way. Normal objects like markers, pens, knives, and scissors call out to you, and beg to be put out of reach. All of you non-parents out there that read this blog know what I’m talking about (yes, I know you’re out there, and I appreciate you!)… you notice how every parent you know that has a toddler automatically moves all of the drinks the waiter places on the table out of reach. You observe that whenever someone with small kids comes over to your house, they move all of the small breakables off of your coffee table and onto something high. Parents out there also know what I’m talking about. We take one look at a permanent marker and think about how it could equal a black mustache on our kid that will take several days to go away.

Parents are like secret agents… we enter a place, take a look around, and discern what needs to get put up, what potential dangers there are, and what damage could occur in the next few minutes. When you are a parent, you no longer look at reality, you look at perceived reality, a reality that could be if you were to simply put your child down and let things play out without interfering. And you have to do all of these things while seeming normal, and relaxed, so your friends won’t think you are a total freak. After a while it just becomes a reflex and you don’t even think about it.

Today, my reflex failed me. Travis was totally on top of things, but Kati’s arms have gotten longer as she’s grown, and he didn’t quite make it as he said, “No, Kati!” and attempted to keep her from dumping a full glass of cold soda all over me.

But, when our worst perceived reality becomes our reality, what do we do? Well, I walked around Ikea looking like I peed my pants and feeling sticky (exacerbated by the fact I’m 6 months pregnant) and I couldn’t help but laugh about it! Come on, go ahead and laugh at my expense, it’s funny, and I couldn’t care in the least. When things go wrong and accidents happen, have a good attitude about it. If your child breaks something, apologize, address it with your child (without overdoing it, they are just a kid after all), and do your best to replace it. But don’t let the little mistakes in life drag you down. And if you end up like me, looking like your pregnant bladder finally got the best of you, embrace it and enjoy the humor. Humor is part of humility after all.

Happy travels!

Kristin

by Kristin on April 13th, 2012 No Comments

Potty Training: Setbacks

Welcome back to the exciting world of potty training. If you missed the first three articles in this series, go ahead and check out the SER Series page to catch up on what you missed so far. And now, full speed ahead. The next in line for this series was taking a bus, plane, or train with a newly potty trained child, but I am going to push that back a week because I am going to be reviewing a product (as soon as it comes in the mail) that I believe will help out in this area. So this week we will be looking at setbacks.

Once you have successfully established potty training behavior at home and when you are on outings, you feel like doing a victory dance. Go ahead, dance it out, you deserve it! You have been working hard and your consistency has begun to pay off. Pretty soon you get into the flow of not having to change diapers (Another cause for dancing? Absolutely!) and potty training no longer seems to be at the forefront of your mind.

If that explains you, then watch out, because you could have a setback coming on at any minute! But don’t worry, there are ways to guard against these setbacks that are simple and effective.

When we visited friends in Poland about 3 months after potty training Ksena, we were so excited when she made the 14 hour car and bus journey without one accident. As soon as we got to our friends’ house, where Ksena was surrounded with her friends, and we were relieved to be in our final city of destination, it happened. Ksena had an accident on our friends’ couch. It was the first one in a long time, and it could have been avoided if I had thought about the excitement we were all placing ourselves in. Ksena knew she had to go to the bathroom, but she was too busy having fun with her friends to go until it was too late. But, you can learn from my mistake!

We set several alarms to remember to get Kati on the potty in the morning when she wakes up and after her nap. This can easily be carried over into exciting events where you and your child might be distracted and forget about their potty breaks altogether.

3 Ways To Avoid A Potty Training Setback

1. Be aware of exciting and distracting events and places that distract your child from remembering to go to the bathroom.

2. Think ahead and set alarms on your phone or whatever else you have to remind you to take your child to the bathroom if you think you will be distracted. This is especially important at busy events when you are likely to be just as distracted as your child. A family reunion, a birthday party, the zoo, you get the idea. Make sure you set your alarm about every hour.

3. Pick a potty buddy. If you are with good friends or family and there is a child that is a little bit older, you can ask them to take your child to the bathroom when they go, and to encourage your child to remember to go the bathroom. This worked wonders in Poland with our daughter and our friends’ 5 year old daughter, and Ksena didn’t have anymore accidents for the rest of the 30 days we were there.