TravelingDad bused it out to Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage, Long Island, for a behind-the-scenes set tour of the CBS comedy “Kevin Can Wait.” Prior to being shepherded around the set, we and a bunch of other family bloggers caught up with the series stars Kevin James and Erinn Hayes.
The actors are parents on the show and in real life – Hayes a mother of two, James a father of four – and in the process of trying to get some travel advice, we discovered that James and Hayes are a lot like us: They’re not perfect parents, nor do they expect you to be.
Here now, a slightly-edited version of my questions to the actors.
TravelingDad: What’s your #1 travel tip for new parents?
Erinn Hayes: Don’t.
{THE BLOGGERS LAUGH}
Kevin James: [My kids] get carsick immediately. They want the windows down, they’re nauseous already. It’s Dramamine heaven. And then they’re all exhausted, and then they’re out cold by the time we get there.
Erinn Hayes: And their heads are bobbing all over and it’s making me so sad, [making me want to get in the backseat with them] so I can hold their heads up while they sleep.
Erinn noted that on one car trip she and her husband “got really cocky” trying to take a longer-than-normal drive and then the kids started crying, “and then I’m leaning over trying to nurse while they’re still strapped in…”
Kevin James: That is a hard thing to do.
{LAUGHTER}
TravelingDad: How about flying, if I may ask?
Kevin James: I’m a horrible flier, so I don’t care about my kids anymore. I have a couple drinks or whatever and I get on the plane and I literally pretend I don’t know them. Pretend they’re somebody else’s kids. I look at them weird when they start screaming. Pointing at them.
{LAUGHTER}
Erinn Hayes: I think scheduling the time of day is very important, so either they’re gonna be sleeping or they shouldn’t at all be sleeping, because you don’t want them overtired. And then you walk on the plane and you’re like {WHISPERING} ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…’ …but then whatever, everybody needs to be a kid,” she says, noting that she can’t understand passengers who get mad at kids on flights (echoing Donnie Wahlberg) “Oh, were you never a baby?”
Kevin James: I was never the guy who would be, ‘I’m mad at the baby,’ because I understand it, and now when I see [the crying baby] I feel for the guy.
After accompanying his travel writer dad to the Peruvian Amazon, Paul Eisenberg had his first trip report published at age 15 in Junior Scholastic magazine and has been a fan of family travel and journalism ever since.
Some years later he went on to serve as editorial director at Fodor’s, where for nearly a decade he directed a guidebook program including U.S. and family travel titles. He has reported on travel for Barclaycard, Shermans Travel, and FoxNews.com, has written about parenting for Nick Jr. magazine and authored the sixth edition of Fodor’s Around New York City with Kids.
In 2010 his article about medical tourism received a Lowell Thomas Award, the highest honor in travel journalism.
Paul and his wife live in New York City with their three children.
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