A Day of Genius Mothering OR Driving from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh with kids the right way

I don’t think I’m going to ever win mother-of-the-year. I think I probably earn a solid C most days, perhaps B- if you take into account how cool my kids lives are (which I can’t take that much credit for, it just worked out that way). Anyway, today I earned at least an A-!

You see we are on a mission to get Callie a new passport (her’s expires in less than six months so I’m afraid she won’t be allowed into Thailand and Vietnam on our trips next month). Because I live by the motto ‘Go Big or Go Home’ I decided to bring Teacher Erin, Chen, Sray Nut and of course Couper, with us to Phnom Penh…and then tack on a couple of days at the beach for good measure. I like the idea that Chen and Sray Nut get to see their nations capital and I also like the idea of my kids playing on the beach with their best friends and getting to be the first ones to show them the ocean. Anyway, I can’t afford tickets for all of us to fly to Phnom Penh (that’s mother-of-the-year kinda money) so we needed to drive. On our recent trip to Kompong Thom Brandon and I had seen a sign for a hotel with a pool. Now it’s somewhat amazing that Kompong Thom even has a hotel, let alone one with a pool! I did some research and it looked nice. So we called and asked if we could stop for a swim and lunch. The very kind manager said that as long as we ate lunch we were welcome to swim!

So this is how it played out…we left Siem Reap in a private van with driver at around 9am, made one stop for snacks (already ratcheting up the grade since I did get Doritos, but also got apples and grapes!) and then hit the road. We arrived in Kompong Thom one pack of grapes, one bag of Doritos and two vomit bags later at around 1130am. Rather than just stopping for lunch at the same-old side-of-the-road Khmer restaurants we drove an extra five minutes and came to Sambor Village Hotel. The kids were in their swimsuits in under five minutes and while our lunch cooked they swam and played. Car sickness, boredom and an iPad obsession were forgotten for Marco Polo, diving for their toys and races! When lunch came they were hungry and ate well and we were back in the car and heading South again by 1pm. Because they were tired from swimming they all napped the second half of the trip, even Callie, my anti-naps daughter.

I did get vomited on two more times (I swear I have to get quicker on the barf bag draw!) but we all arrived in Phnom Penh around 4pm feeling like we had had a semi-fun day, instead of a boring puke-fest.

So from now on our guests that travel by road from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh we will be recommending a stop for lunch at Sambor Village Hotel and even if you don’t want to play Marco Polo, it’s a good lunch and a nice break from the road. So yea, maybe not most mother’s idea of an A- day (home cooked meals, discussing morals and values, etc) but I took what could have been a long day and turned it into a bit of an adventure…that’s some genius mothering in my book!