Those loooong journeys with kids!

We love to travel, we thought. Oh yes, we will take all those wonderful quiet breaks, rejuvenate and give the children exposure to the real world. Ok. Reality check: before the destination, there’s a journey. So, when it is a journey with kids, a lot can happen, really a lot.

The first time we travelled on an overnight train with the kids – we were geared up for a lot of fun. The excitement of sleeping on the train, the new sights zipping across, the sounds so typically “train” and getting to meet a lot of new people – oh yes, it was going to be a lot of fun. Or was it? Fascinated by a whole new experience altogether, our sons – then aged 3 and 6, proceeded on a trip of their own altogether. Starting with dashing up and down the corridor, waving at all the passengers and climbing every bunk in sight, most of all, they decided to yell out to each other from opposite ends of the coach. It was a terrifically funny game, it seems however, to no one but their two selves. 

After vain attempts to calm them down, we crept, stealthily into our bunks and lay down, pretending that we had nothing to do with this whole circus. I’m quite sure not a single person on our coach slept till the boys did, as tired from all these antics, they climbed precariously into their berths and slumbered in lion-like attitude. Everyone slept in a hurry, wanting to make the most of this period of silence.

Of course, they got up really early in the morning – persistently requiring explanations for every little leaf and ant that the train was zooming past, never satisfied with one answer, each question seemingly intended to fox every adult in sight! They were also chirpily garrulous and by the time we got off the train, bleary-eyed, the boys had shared most of our family history (not excluding gory details) to every passenger on the coach. All of them seemed strangely friendly (or was it relieved) just as we were about to exit. I could almost swear that a few of them cheered as we left and even the train seemed to start earlier than usual, to ensure we didn’t hop back on, perhaps.

Never, we said, would we make another journey like this – a spectacle that left us tired out and ready to just get back home. It wasn’t just trains that were arduous, for the kids seemed to master the art of making just about every journey duration, more adventurous, longer and noisier than it was ever intended to have been. I remember when our elder son was about two years old and on a flight, he decided it was more convenient to stand on the seat, that is, the view was definitely better. 

The cabin crew member was persistent. Madam, she said, he will have to sit. Much as I agreed with her, there was this little roadblock in my child’s views. Stand he would, no matter what others thought of the matter. I had just communicated this won’t do to him very sternly and the cabin crew member too joined this sternness team. He let loose a piteous wail. Usually I wouldn’t have swerved but the young attendant was aghast and in immediate panic, hushed him. “It is s ok mam”, she hushed, “let him do what he wants, but do hold on to him”, she pleaded – a somewhat unnecessary caution, given that he had decided it was more fun to stand without holding anything, arms up in the air, gazing all around over the seats and out of the windows. 

By the time we got off, my shoulder was frozen in an awkward slant and I looked like I was constantly trying to hail a cab (which did look a little out of place, given I was still inside the airport). My boy plodded along happily full of baby babble about the sights he had seen – mainly the tops of the heads of those on board, please note, not the view outside the window.

Road journeys can be awesome play time! Ahem...

Road journeys were yet another story. Initially under control with one kid, strapped into a seat and dozing most of the time, as they got out of that dozing phase and after there were two kids in the back, it was constant mayhem. “No you are not supposed to poke each other in the eye”, “Looking out of the window doesn’t mean making faces at the passers-by” “What do you mean, you are hungry because you are a growing child. You just ate 15 minutes ago”, “Making car sick noises and laughing after we stop the car is not funny.” Usually, when we reached our destination, we just slept a lot of the time. We needed our energy for the drive back, although we were inside the closed confines of just a car, it was a car with two creatively riotous kids in the back seat.

This is how I walk... on my Dad's back!

Of course, the walks and the treks, I’m not even getting into. Usually, exactly at mid-point into one of these, they would collapse vowing they couldn’t take another step forward. The journey would finish on their dad’s piggy-back, us in relief on reaching our rooms. Even as we were beginning our enquiries of concern, hoping they were not too tired, they would dash off to the nearest play area playing noisily and energetically for the next couple of hours. “Yes I was so tired, that I couldn’t take another step forward by but I don’t know how my energy has all come back.”

After much grumbling about our tiring journeys, we decided to take off alone once, just once. As the drive began, we soaked in the peace and quiet in the back seat. It was so bloody quiet however, it was unnerving. We turned right around and swore never to venture in such stifling peace. That noise was an integral part of our journey of parenting, one that we couldn’t do without.

So now, we have a simple logic in the way we approach travel schedules. Rest during the holiday, rest after the holiday. The destination does not matter; the journey really is what we are recovering from; and of course, noise is supreme – very much part of the journey, very much a part of the parenting expedition!