I Just Want You to Know (4 page)

When our fans think about our travels as a family, they think of the big trips they saw on television—renewing our vows in Hawaii, skiing in Utah, or spending time at the beach in North Carolina. But in those early days, “traveling” to us meant leaving our driveway. And we didn’t do that often. Until the sextuplets were thirteen months old, we didn’t even own a vehicle we could all fit in. People had given us money over the years, and we spent sparingly and saved what we could because we weren’t sure how long our unemployment would last. But once Jon was securely back to work, we used some of that savings to put a down payment on the Big Blue Bus. That bus was the difference between going nowhere and going anywhere we wanted.

After we moved to Elizabethtown, we didn’t stay home all the time. Maybe it was because things finally felt under control—we had a schedule and things were running smoothly. Maybe it was
because the kids were a little older and more mobile. But more than anything, I think it was because we missed our church. When we lived on Dauphin Avenue in Wyomissing, our church was only a few miles away; but from Elizabethtown, it was almost fifty. Moving to the new house was necessary because it was so much closer to Jon’s work, but we felt isolated and alone. We wanted to go back to our church.

For many parents, getting themselves and their kids up, dressed, and out the door for church on Sunday is a spiritual hurdle. For us, it was the biggest logistical challenge we had ever undertaken. When Jon and I started talking about going back to our church, we weren’t sure it was something we could pull off. But we wanted to try.

On the first Sunday, we got the kids up, fed them breakfast, and loaded them into the car. By the time we pulled out of the driveway, we knew we were going to be late. The service started at 9:30, so that meant we had to leave no later than 8:30 to allow time to get
there, get the kids unloaded, and get everyone in their proper places. Being late meant we were a little stressed by the time we sat down for the service. But other than the timing that first week, things went smoothly and the kids did well. On the drive home, we discussed what we could do differently the following week.

When the kids were that little, much of our time together was spent thinking about logistics, planning, or implementing plans, because nothing was easy. Jon and I would work through the details of an upcoming outing together. To me it was a challenge and I took pride in it. If something didn’t work, I’d think it through until I came up with a workable solution.

The next Sunday, we made a few adjustments to our schedule. But we still ran late. “There has to be a way to make this work, Jon.”

“This is a crazy idea…” he said, pausing as he merged into traffic. “But what if they ate breakfast in the car?”

“What could the kids eat that wouldn’t be messy?”

We reviewed several options, but they all ended with food on the floor mats or eighty sticky fingers needing to be cleaned.

Then I had an idea: “Dry cereal! They’d have their juice cups to drink from, and if we could somehow attach the cereal to their seats, they could eat it with one hand.”

“Let’s try it.”

My inspiration came later that week while doing laundry. Hanging up the girls’ Easter dresses, I remembered each dress came with
a matching drawstring purse. What if I put a sandwich bag packed with cereal inside each pouch and attached it to their car seats? Between the big and little girls’ dresses, and an extra dress we ended up with somehow, we had six pouches. The pouches had pink polka dots and stripes, but I didn’t care. They’d work just fine.

That Sunday, Jon and I secured the kids in their car seats and looped the drawstrings through their buckles. Each got a juice cup, and for the next hour they happily ate their breakfast. This was a logistical breakthrough! From then on, we were never late to church. It may seem like a small victory to some, but to us it was huge. It gave us the confidence we needed to attempt other kinds of travel. Our dry cereal solution convinced us that with enough forethought and preparation we could successfully navigate the outside world.

Oh, how wrong we were. No matter how hard Jon and I worked to master logistics for different situations, it turned out there were some things that even we couldn’t plan for.

For Memorial Day 2006, Jon and I wanted to do something special with the kids. We had mastered our weekly visit to church; it was time to take another step. Finances were still an issue. Whatever we did had to be free because we didn’t have extra money. We decided on the zoo, but not just any zoo. We wanted to go to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. In typical Gosselin style, we didn’t step out of our comfort zone—we plunged.

This would be our first road trip in the Big Blue Bus and we had a couple of things to deal with first. The first was the lack of rear air-conditioning—a $4,000 option we couldn’t afford. We bought clip-on fans and did whatever we could to make it cool enough to drive, but on really hot afternoons it wasn’t safe for the kids.

Second, while we had unlimited options for customizing a van like ours, we couldn’t afford any of them. To make the bus work for us, we learned to customize it ourselves. For example, the bus didn’t
have a front console so I found a cooler with a pop-up tray and cup holders. That made it easier to store and serve the juice I always brought with us. Juice boxes were expensive so I used juice from bottles and diluted it.

I found plastic drawers that fit under the van seats and stocked them with essentials like diapers and wipes. But I also included other supplies like disposable bibs, trash bags, Band-Aids, paper towels, blankets, and an extra outfit for each kid. Whatever we could possibly need, it was there and neatly organized. For a while, I even put in a pack of swimmies in case we ended up at a friend’s house to swim.

We customized that van in ways that it was never meant to be customized, but I wanted to make sure we always had what we needed. I took great pride in restocking the bus. Because the van was so well supplied, even if I forgot something, chances were that I could make do with what I had. And having what we needed was the difference between a miserable trip and a wonderful trip. It’s also why a long car ride didn’t scare me. We were prepared.

Jon even researched the zoo’s terrain. When he learned there were hills, we decided to take our six-seat stroller with big wheels instead of our two three-seat strollers with very small wheels. Since the kids sat two-by-two with each row higher than the one before it, this would give each child an unobstructed view of the animals.

On the big day, I packed breakfast, lunch, and extra snacks. When traveling, food does wonders for our kids! Jon loaded the van and checked the weather. It was supposed to be overcast with no precipitation.

“It’s not supposed to rain, right?” I asked.

“Nope, it’s not supposed to rain,” said Jon as he removed the front wheel of the stroller so he could fit it into the back of the bus.

The last thing we packed before leaving was the comfort bag. Each child used a different stuffed animal or blanket to help them fall asleep. Alexis had her pink blankie. Leah and Aaden had their chewies—burp cloths they had become attached to. Joel had a stuffed
dog with a colorful sweater that he named Doggy Man. Collin had Ducky or Bear (“Bay-uh”), a stuffed animal/blanket combination, and Hannah had one of two stuffed toys, either Bunny or Kitty-Cat. We packed them all in a blue nylon Enfamil bag and took it wherever we went.

Packing that bag seems simple, but it wasn’t. Since they slept with their comfort items, we couldn’t pack them until right before we left. If I set the bag down, the kids would find their comfort item, take it out, and I wouldn’t notice until it was too late.

As Jon put the kids in the car, I counted the comfort items one last time to make sure they were all there. I wasn’t going to let anything ruin this trip.

Heading down the highway, I could see it was still overcast. “You’re sure it’s not supposed to rain?” I asked Jon again.

“Nope, they said it was not going to rain.”

I wanted to believe him, but forty miles into the drive, the sky darkened ominously.

“Tell me it is not going to rain.”

“Kate, it is not going to rain. They said it wasn’t going to rain.”

Two hours into the drive, the unthinkable happened. It started to rain.

“Jon, it’s raining! Now what do we do?”

“What do you want to do?”

I hoped and prayed it wasn’t raining at the zoo. We had spent so long researching this trip, packing the van, and getting the kids’ hopes up; I couldn’t see turning around when maybe it would all blow over.

“Let’s keep going.”

An hour later, we pulled into the parking lot of the National Zoo, and it was still raining.

“Now what?” Jon asked.

It was pouring at this point. “Let’s just make the best of it. If we see three animals and then leave, at least we saw three animals.”

We parked and unloaded that huge stroller, which of course meant standing in the rain while we attached the front wheel. When we unloaded the kids, I tried not to make a big deal out of the rain because I didn’t want them to get upset. After all, it is just water.

Jon raced to the entrance with the stroller, avoiding the deepest puddles. I ran behind, trying not to get hit with the spray. No question about it—we were going to get wet. “Jon, when we get inside let’s see if we can buy some of those rain ponchos.” I was determined to help the kids have the best time possible. We took cover in the first shop we saw. “Do you sell rain ponchos?” I asked the girl behind the counter.

“I’m sorry, we’re all out. We sold the last one about twenty minutes ago.”

It was probably a good thing. I was willing to spend the money, but we couldn’t have afforded ten anyway. Then I had an idea. In front of us was a food vendor huddling under his hut to keep dry.

“Excuse me, do you have a roll of trash bags?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“Could you give me ten of them? I’ll pay you.”

“No, lady, you can just take them,” he said as he tore off ten plastic bags.

Growing up, my grandma had taught me a trick; if you poke head and armholes into the trash bag, it’s almost like having a rain poncho. One by one, Jon and I dressed each of the kids into a clear trash bag and tucked it around them. Then Jon and I put ours on. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it helped. All morning we had walked around in trash bags and hid under trees and shelters. We spent a long time watching the elephants because they were indoors. We knew we looked ridiculous, but we didn’t care. We wanted our kids to experience the zoo like kids in normal-sized families did.

But I had forgotten again that we weren’t a normal family. Our first shows had aired and people were starting to recognize us from TV. With the size of our group and our trash-bag ponchos we weren’t exactly inconspicuous. Jon noticed people were staring. As word traveled around the zoo, we began to see people taking pictures—not of the animals—but of us. By the time we got to the panda exhibit (a rare display; most zoos in America don’t have pandas) we found more people staring and taking pictures of our family than of the pandas! It’s actually quite uncomfortable to be in a zoo and find people treating you like the exhibit. I imagined the conversations around us: “Mom, after we see the pandas, can we go see that TV family in the trash bags?” I started to sympathize with the animals.