Kids at Festivals

Comfest is this weekend, and I was just thinking of making a little post on a social media site about how I wish someone had given me some advice on how to "festival" with kids a long time ago. Then, I remembered that I have this blog, so I thought I'd write it here and then link it. We'll see how it goes.

I'm about as far from a Pineterest mom as it gets, but I manage to have a good time with our little tribe at festivals (it took a lot of miserable outings to figure these little things out).

Some stuff that works for us:

Before we leave the house:.

• I remind them "no touching ANY dogs, even if they are nice and the owners say it's ok. Leave them alone. They are overstimulated."
• I remind them to stay with me -- all the time. "If you wander off, we will leave -- even if we just arrived, we will leave."
• I remind them that if they DO get lost, they are to find the volunteer booth and / or a family with babies to help them. (When we get there, we will decide on a meeting place). If they get lost, they need to get to it and don't move. "You stay in one place. We will be looking for you. Let us find you."
• I explain the budget.
• I explain how the day will go.
• I assign each little kid to a big kid "buddy" (or remind them who their buddies are and give them a chance to switch if they want). After buddies are established, there is no switching during the day. They are responsible for each other. If one gets into mischief, both have consequences. 
• We work together to pack our picnic stuff and other supplies.
• We decide the things that everyone really wants to see. 
• We commit to the idea that each person will see at least one thing they have really been looking forward to. E.g. A wants meat on a stick; Gogo wants to play the drums; Fluff wants to dance to a specific band; Supah wants to see if anyone has cool phone covers; Lulu wants her face painted; Lali wants to make sand art... we PLAN this stuff.
• I quiz them about what we just went over. 
• We keep our expectations for the day realistic. It's never gonna be like the movies or like nostalgia makes us think it once was.

Once we're there:

I am willing to pay for decent parking (if that's an option)
I'm cheap. Like really cheap. But after a day in hot sun, epic kid-meltdowns on a long walk back to a vehicle usually result in lugging a sweaty child on my hip or back while forcing an older child to carry our cooler or whatever while everyone sweats and moans as they limp the lengthy distance to our van. I'm willing to spend up to 10 dollars (usually I can find parking for five) to park close enough to avoid sweaty, limping, squalling kids.

If decent parking is not an option, I could maybe use public transportation or a shuttle or something. 
Bigger festivals in smaller cities usually have a shuttle service. I use the heck out of that stuff. Comfest, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't, but the public transportation on High St. is relatively predictable. Park in a Park and Ride lot somewhere, and ride in. The only real problem with buses and shuttles is that I can't bring a wagon, and I kind of feel like a wagon is reeeeeeally important. Maybe, one of those wheely shopping things would work if public transportation is the only option. Hmmmm. Yeah, probably, but you can't put kids in it. 

Bring a Wagon
Wagons are amazing. My youngest kids are like 8 and 9 now, so they don't really ride in it anymore, but when they were little, the wagon was perfect because I could fill it with supplies for the day, and the kids could pull it when they were still fresh and excited for the day. Then as we used our supplies throughout the day, we emptied the wagon, making room for sweaty, tired wee ones to be carried back to the van. Also, wagons are a good way to contain them if they get too rambunctious or wandery.

Supplies / Budget
I have six kids. If I buy each of them a darn lemonade and a pretzel, I've already spent as much as I spend on a midweek run to the grocery. A whole day's worth of festival food is not even remotely possible on my budget. We do only a couple festivals a year, so I can kind of save for them. I give each kid a set amount of money to spend as they want. I help them make choices, like consult, but if they decide they want to spend their whole budget on a cool hat, that's fine. If they decide to spend it on funnel cakes, also fine. I pack sandwiches, tons of fruit, cups, several pitchers of lemonade or tea, and some kind of sweet treat. So we have plenty of food, enough to eat and enough to share. By the end of the day, the very full wagon is usually empty except for the containers we brought. 

Also, I bring a big blanket, hand sanitizer, changes of clothes (when I remember), sunblock, a long scarf (though maybe some kind of rope or something would do) and paper towels. They are all important.

• big blanket - to stake my claim on some ground, set up camp, have picnic food...
• hand sanitizer -- because festivals can be gross and the porta-potties can be even grosser.
• change of clothes -- kids spill stuff, pee themselves, roll in dirt... whatever. Some adults do too. If someone messes up their clothes, I'm always tempted to just buy them some, rather than let them walk around with blueberry goo on their shorts or something. If I bring a change of clothes, I save money.
• Sunblock -- We almost always stay longer than we'd planned. Sunblock needs to be reapplied. Also, I can be the hero of my pink shouldered friends who forgot or didn't realize that the sun burns us for crying out loud. ("Here, have some fruit and some tea, and some sunblock!")
• A long scarf -- I wear them a LOT because I can take them off and make them a little rope for all the kids to hang on to in big crowds, I can put them over my head or someone else's to give us a break from the sun, I can carry stuff in it, I can wipe up a messy face with it, I can tie it on a kid's wrist if that kid is being too wandery, I can use it to measure boundaries for my older kids when we are watching a band or other entertainer. "Our space is as far as my scarf stretches in front of me. Here, grab it and walk. Notice where you are? Don't go beyond there."
• Paper towels -- because mess, because scrapes and scratches, because sometimes potties are out of tp. 

Home base

I find a place that looks like it might be shady all day and leave my blanket there. I have never had a blanket stolen -- rained on, yes -- stolen, no. But obviously, I use blankets I don't mind parting with. I stake a claim on some ground and leave that blanket there all day. We return to it frequently. We don't just wander the festival all day. Having a little home base gives the kids a little port in a sea of stimulation. A place that is away from loud stages and easy to find is pretty ideal. I usually find one. We go back to our little home base frequently. In fact, we often spend about half of our time there. We see what one person wanted to see, take a potty break, and return to homebase for some fruit and drinks. There, we can talk about what we've done so far and what we plan to do next. Breaks are important for all of us, but especially for the little ones. If we take frequent breaks and are intentional and deliberate with how we spend our day, everyone really appreciates what we see and do, and the kids aren't freaking out over being dragged from thing to thing.

Wandering

Wandering and browsing is really awesome and relaxing for adults, but my kids have a pretty low threshold for it. I have found that the following two strategies (both of which demand that I set my own way of doing things aside and be willing to sacrifice a little to accommodate them and interact with them) have helped them build and endurance for browsing and wandering:

• Browse in bursts -- They cannot handle all darn day! They can't. So I can either have a miserable time while forcing them to have a miserable time while I adhere to some idealized pattern of wandering established in my adolescence, or we can all get closer to enjoying the day by my simple willingness to accept that they do not have the patience for wandering from one thing that doesn't interest them to another thing that doesn't interest them. Soooooo, instead of trying to do all my wandering at once, I chunk it out and try to be attentive as I can to when they start to struggle, so I can tell them that they are doing a great job and after we look at this "one more thing," we'll head back to homebase. Then I HONOR that promise and go have some fruit or crackers or something. Then we can head out again in a little while. See, that "one more thing" increases their attentiveness and endurance and gives them a tangible end to this chunk of time in their lives. If they have no sense of when this wandering around will end, it will feel endless. They will whine. I will get angry. We will establish a pattern of "browsing means misery." It will never be fun.
• I let them lead me -- If we are going to walk around several times, for like 20 - 45 minutes each time, why not let them take the lead? It gives us all empathy for each other. And it lets me see what they are actually interested in, how they make choices, how they manage crowds, etc. (here's another moment when my nifty scarf comes in handy).

Going home-

I use that wagon for darn sure!

Also, even though I always promise myself that I'll make dinner, I'm always wiped out. I used to take them to fast food or something (because that was all I had money left over for), but now, I take them to a small grocery store and give them each like five dollars. They then decide if they want to pool their funds with one or more of their siblings or if they want to buy five dollars worth of food on their own. Most times, they pool money and make choices together. After they check out, we have a picnic at the tables in front of the store. THAT simple. Cheaper than sit down, only a little more than fast food, and healthy for them in like a million ways. 

I try (with a good, not great, success rate) to get them home with enough time to get settled in, check out any new stuff they got at the festival, chill out and feel like they are at home before I put them to bed. I find if I put them straight to bed, sleep comes slowly to them and they are cranky the next day. Time to decompress and process their day is important.

That last sentence, "time to decompress and process their day is important" is probably the controlling idea of this little writing exercise, but also, more and more, it is becoming a governing factor in my parenting and in my life. Just like everything, we get more from these days if we slow down, take in fewer things, but experience them more fully. 

Yeah, mostly, for me and my little tribe, successful "festivaling" is about slowing down or stopping frequently, looking around, and naming our experiences. Probably the same for successful "lifing."