By Gina Rich

Ah, summer. It’s the season for mosquito bites, cold drinks on the patio, and the laughter of carefree kids splashing around the pool. It’s also the time of year when parents spend countless hours chauffeuring young children back and forth to camps, play dates, and a multitude of other activities.

As a result, here are some things I’m pretty sure will happen in my car this summer:

Sibling battles will ensue. My kids can quarrel anywhere, of course, but the car is one of their favorite locations to do so.

The car will double as a dining room. Once summer is in full swing, the lunchtime hour gets especially hectic in our house. Between shuttling to activities and making sure we’re appropriately slathered with sunscreen and bug spray, I’m often running late. So, packing meals to eat in the car is my attempt to save time. 

Someone will have a meltdown. Sometimes too much fun in the sun equals exhausted, cranky children. And cranky children often lead to frustrated parents, who aren’t immune to having meltdowns themselves.

Roughly a closet’s worth of crayons, stickers, plastic toys, and food will become lost in the abyss between the seats. I could probably entertain and feed a small village of rodents for months with what’s accumulated in the crevices of my vehicle.

Something sticky will be spilled in the backseat. Ice cream, popsicles, and lemonade are so refreshing in summer. It’s less of a treat to scrape their residue off the seats with one’s fingernails, however. (By the way, if anyone knows how to remove a melted caramel apple pop from the console, I’m all ears.)

There will be sand. Oh, so much sand. I’ll remind my kids to please shake out their shoes before entering the car, but it won’t matter. By the end of the summer, we’ll have collected enough raw material to build a respectable sandcastle.

Everyone will disagree on music. One kid likes hearing the same song on repeat, while the other prefers absolute quiet so she can “enjoy the scenery” out the window. The adults prefer Bon Jovi or Aerosmith, choices that make the backseat occupants cringe and say, “What is this old music?”

We’ll hear the phrase, “I’m bored,” many times. We might be driving a short distance or embarking on a longer road trip, but at least one child will invariably complain of boredom approximately two minutes into the journey. To which the grown-ups will respond, “Why don’t you entertain yourself by making a collage of the stuff you find in between the seats?”

All joking aside, the best part of summer is being able to spend more time with family. Wherever your travels may take you, I hope you have a safe and happy season! 

Gina Rich lives in Wisconsin, where she writes about parenting, health, and the natural world for publications including the Washington Post, Notre Dame Magazine, and others.