Friday, June 20, 2008

Surviving the car ride!


I often hear parents talk about the dread they feel anytime they need to take a long car ride with their children. They rely on the DVD player to maintain some sense of sanity on the trip. We are very fortunate when it comes to traveling by car. Since birth our daughter(now 4 years old) has taken the 5 hour trip to visit our families and is a fabulous car rider! We do hear an occasional "Are we there yet?" but generally our car rides are very pleasant. We don't have a DVD player in the car, so what's our secret? Besides lots of practice riding, I'd say having special snacks and giving her some control over the ride are our secrets. She gets to choose what we listen to on the trip. Yes, five hours of listening to Dragon Tales Tunes and Elmo is a bit boring for us but she's happy and the ride goes by quickly. We've started checking out audio books from our library right before a long trip. On our last trip we all listened to the first Harry Potter book. We all enjoyed it! We also have a scheduled stop for gas and snacks that we make on each trip. She looks forward to this and is happy in the back seat for an hour after our stop eating her snack. We enjoy the car ride.
Some other audio books we've enjoyed are:
The Magic Treehouse
Rabbit Ears Treasury of Fables
Rabbit Ears Treasury of Animal Stories
Tell Me a Story
The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Waterhorse

3 comments:

MegandMag said...

Thanks for sharing Jill! My son loves listening to the Curious George Treasury on CD at home, but I have never thought to take it in the car.

girlwithmoxy said...

I totally agree with you. DVD player died, never replaced it, and we have had more time to talk, tell stories, read books, draw, and all the other more important things to do when trapped in a car together. Love your post!

jillytacy said...

We love audiobooks but they can be expensive. We've started asking for them as holiday gifts or we check them out of the library. Our local library has a program that allows you to download audio books. Some require an MP3 player but others can be burned to a CD for the lending period.
My daughter also loves to hear us tell her stories. She loves stories about when she was little(she's only four) and stories about her dad and I when we were growing up. We get to reminisce and entertain her at the same time.