Just when you think you are the only woman on the planet crazy enough to drag her kid(s) from one end of it to the other, be reassured that there are others like you, including some of the women of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Softball Team. This story, A Journey Toward the Games, With the Kids in the Back, tells of how gold medal winners didn’t ride with the team around the States for the qualifying games to travel to China, but instead tugged their toddlers along in a RV. While the women of softball aren’t the only athletes alternating trainings with diaper changes and carpool duty, all moms who tackle jobs, travel, study, and more alongside family should be Gold Medal winners.
Since Alex was born, he’s traveled alone with mom from California to Idaho to Texas to Kentucky to the Middle East all on behalf of mommy’s work. At just one year old, and barely able to master walking, the three hour drive in Idaho from Boise took him trekking through the soft snow of Sun Valley. Things warmed up in Houston, but he slept all along the beautiful River Walk of San Antonio. A year later, he hopped skipped and jumped his way from the hills of downtown San Francisco to exquisite horse farms in Lexington, KY. Two trips to the Middle East already under his belt will soon make him an expert on the region.
But, while the women of the US Softball team were able to pull together the $75,000 needed for the daycare on wheels, the rest of us are not so lucky. What would I pay for a nanny-on-the-go? Even accepting the help of family, friends, business contacts and strangers in planes, trains, rental cars, airports, hotels and more is never enough to make the challenge of travel much easier, but the prospects leaving Alex behind is far more difficult. So until I win the lottery to cover the costs of a traveling nanny, Alex and I will continue the journeys alone.
