Transporting the Grandkids

Online the other day, someone commented on how stressful it can be to travel with children when they can't have their electronics along. I remember the first time we transported a grandchild for a distance.

Being “old generation,” we refused the parents’ offer of taking their DVD for entertainment. It is surprising what you can entertain a youngster with. The first thing that comes to my mind is my sisters and I singing “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” I am sure this absolutely drove my mom and dad nuts, but they did endure it for quite a while, as I remember.

Of course as we got older, reading the Burma Shave signs was real entertainment. We watched for trains and counted the cars. (We didn’t have to know how to count very far then because trains were a lot shorter). If you were really bored, you always asked how much farther to the next town. I am not sure why one would ask that because nine chances out of 10 you weren’t going to stop there anyway.

Do you remember playing “I Spy with my Eye?” Now all of these things took encouragement and direction from accompanying adults, but we did have to use our imaginations. Children do still have the abilities to come up with good things, we just need to give them more opportunity or need. It wasn’t too many years ago my husband and I were taking a grandchild back home. Of course, we stopped for snacks, which included large scoop Fritos. Grandson was given several, requesting several more before long. We wondered just where he was putting them all. Actually, they had become trucks and his pillow was the highway. Do we need to get back to using our imagination and making our own entertainment?