We used to think that travel “overwhelm” was just something parents whispered about at playgrounds or joked about online. But when we really looked at how we were moving through life, we realized something bigger was happening, something we never slowed down long enough to name.

It wasn’t one moment. It was a series of tiny ones.

The rushed packing that turned into snapping at each other.
The car rides that felt tense instead of fun.
The moments when our son, our one sweet boy, was happily chatting in the backseat, and we were just… too overstimulated to enjoy it.
The guilt that crept in afterward because we knew these years are precious.
The sinking feeling that maybe we were messing up the very memories we were trying to create.

And then came the light-bulb moment.

We were halfway through a long drive when we realized we were holding our breath, literally. We turned to each other and said, “This can’t be what family travel is supposed to feel like. Not for us. Not for him.”

We didn’t want survival mode.
We wanted connection.
We wanted to remember the inside jokes, the silly moments, the joy, not how exhausted and overstimulated we felt.

And that’s when we decided something had to change.

Not someday. Not when life felt easier.
But now.

Because if travel was going to be a big part of our son’s childhood, then we had to find a way to make it feel better, for all of us.

That change didn’t come from something big.
It came from something small.
Something simple.
Something we used to overlook:

Play.

And that realization became the heartbeat of Squish Games.

There was a night not too long ago when we stood in the hallway, staring at the same pile of laundry we had walked by for three days. Our son was asking us to come play, but all we could think about was dishes in the sink, school papers on the counter, and toys that somehow migrated to every corner of the house.

We weren’t fighting. We weren’t upset.
We were simply… tired.

Tired of the clutter.
Tired of the nonstop chores.
Tired of feeling like our whole home had slowly turned into one big to-do list.

And as we looked at each other, it hit us, a light-bulb moment that felt both uncomfortable and honest:

We were spending more time managing our home than actually living in it with our boy.

That realization stung. But it also woke us up.

Something had to change. Not by becoming “perfect,” not by “finally getting organized,” but by shifting the energy inside our home.
We needed more connection… and a whole lot more fun.

We did not notice how far apart we had drifted until the quiet moments started to feel heavy. Conversations became about schedules, work, and what needed to be done next. The laughter that used to fill our home had faded into background noise of routine. We loved each other deeply, but we were living side by side instead of together.

It was one night after Squish went to bed that it hit us. We sat across from each other, both on our phones, both exhausted, and realized that we had not really talked in days. We were functioning as a team but not connecting as partners. That was our light bulb moment. It was not that something big had broken us apart; it was the small things we had stopped doing together. We had stopped playing.