Traveling with a Two Year Old - Part Two

When we were getting ready to for the St. Louis trip I knew traveling was going to be a different ballgame with Jaden now that he’s two.  He has his own airplane seat, he likes to do more things on his own, one toy doesn’t entertain him for a long period of time, my back can’t lug around enough books to just entertain him with reading…etc.

I had several ideas for some quiet books – like many of us probably had to take to church when we were little.  I saw TONS of cute ideas that gave me inspiration.  However, since all of them involved a LOT of sewing AND I had very limited time, I decided to go another route.

So, here is a view of my NO SEW quiet book.

The base for all of the pages are file folders cut in half.  I tried to keep the themes 4 pages (front, 2 middle, back) so that I could take out sections and replace them later.  All base pieces were glued onto the file folders with rubber cement and then laminated over.  All moveable pieces were cut out, laminated, and cut out again.  All moveable pieces and the place the “go” for storing or placement have sticky backed Velcro attached.  All the pages are stored in a 3-ring binder.  (It’ll make more sense as you see it).

This page has the word to “Jesus Loves Me” on it along with the pieces for the puzzle on the opposite page.

Here is the puzzle as you put it together.  I used sticky backed Velcro strips cut into small pieces for all of the pieces in this book.  I figured it would help Jaden get things in the right place AND keep from having pieces flying all over the airplane.  This puzzle was a little too hard for Jaden right now but, he did keep trying.

The next pages were dedicated to Noah’s Ark.  This was one of Jaden’s favorite pages.  He likes to name the animals and match them up

To fill in the back page of that section I put a coloring page of Noah’s Ark.  I just printed the coloring sheet, glued it to the file folder.  If you use crayons you can wipe it off with a Kleenex.  Jaden prefers markers to crayons now so he wasn’t too into these pages.  I experimented with markers but washable markers just stayed wet and rubbed right off on our hands and I didn’t trust non washable markers on planes and in other people’s houses.  I suppose dry erase markers would work but, I haven’t seen those washable either and, I didn’t have any to test with.

The next section is a traffic theme.

Stoplight

Matching up the cars.  This one was a little tricky because some of the cars are too close in color.  We worked on identifying if the lines matched up and if there was a front and a back of each car.  There is a removable Ziploc attached with velcro to the right hand page that holds all the pieces.

This section had an extra middle page because I had a great idea.  I drew a little road and several of our favorite places, the mission, the store, the park, our street…  Jaden didn’t really get the idea of playing in this “town” with his toy car.  I guess that kind of pretend hasn’t set in yet.

Last in the traffic section was a coloring sheet with Cars characters

The right pages starts a “love” section.  The words to “Jesus Loves the Little Children are printed with spaces to put blocks of each color that appears in the song.  It also holds the puzzle pieces for the following page – Heart matching

Then I was running out of ideas and time so I just lumped the pages together.  So much for being able to take activities out easily.  Oh well.  This is a counting and number recognition game.  You count the cherries on the cupcakes and match it up to the corresponding number.  At the time we took the trip, Jaden didn’t really recognize numbers yet so, he was a little lost.  He tried to match the cupcakes by color.  (Sometimes the cupcake with cherries has the same color frosting as the one with the correct number but not always).

The cherry topped cupcakes were stored in a library card “oven”

Next was helping the bear get dressed.  Jaden liked this page but there were a few too many things for him to get the clothes back in the basket very easily.  He also doesn’t quite have the concept of matching clothes yet.  But, he still had fun.

And then a matching shapes page.  This one was his FAVORITE.  I cut out shapes from all different colors and stored them in the Ziploc on the right.

 The shapes are traced on library card pockets.  The pockets have Velcro on the back so you can take them off and even use this as a floor game or you can later change them out to sort by colors instead.

Just insert the shapes in the matching pockets.

And to finish it off, a Thomas the train coloring page.  I also found that the coloring pages were difficult because of all of the Velcro pieces behind them in the book.  They were kind of lumpy.

All in all, this project was a LOT of work but occupied Jaden for one entire plane ride and several other odds and ends of time throughout the trip.  We’ll occasionally take it to church or on other travels (we have several trips coming up again this spring/summer).  A useful tool, adapatable, and VERY fun!

Flying with a 2 Year Old – Part 1

DISCLAIMER (sorry to any of my regular readers who isn’t interested in this one.  Skip to the end to see a cute pic of the munchkin.)

Our mariachi tour to St. Louis was the first trip we’ve taken by plane since Jaden turned 2.  That meant we had to buy him his own ticket (OUCH!).  I did a bunch of reading and searching and was just NOT excited about carrying our GIGANTIC car seat through the airport (along with all our other STUFF) and into and out of the skinny airplane aisles.

I found the CARES Safety Harness  for kids but thought it was kind of a lot of money since I don’t know exactly how much we’ll travel by plane.

In the end.  I decided my sanity was worth an effort to save so I bought it.

Based on some of the reviews I had read I wondered

-          If I would have trouble with the airlines to use it.

-          If it would really be as easy to install as the directions indicated.

-          If it would be comfortable for Jaden.

-          If he would actually stay buckled in it.

Here is my review:

SUMMARY: I would recommend this product to anyone flying with a child that fits the size requirements for the harness.  There are a few things I would recommend (see detailed summary).

-          I did have a few flights attendants tell me that they didn’t think I could use the item when I was installing it.  In most cases simply telling them it was FAA Approved gave me the green light.  A few actually looked at the paper I showed them which the manufacturer recommends you carry with you.

-          It was SUPER easy to install.  Honestly.  Like 1 ½ minutes tops.

-          1^st flight Jaden was awake and playing the whole time.  He was just fine and comfortable.  2^nd flight he was in it for takeoff and a bit of reading.  Then he was really tired and wanted to sleep.  He just wanted to be on mommy’s lap so I let him.  He returned to the seat belt before landing.  3^rd flight he was fine playing, eating, etc.  4^th flight he was REALLY tired so he fell asleep at takeoff.  Many reviews indicated that the chest strap is too close to the child’s neck and they are worried about strangling them when they fall asleep or that the child couldn’t get comfortable while wearing the harness.  I propped Jaden’s head with a blanket (I didn’t have a neck pillow) and after takeoff I reclined his seat a little bit so he was in a little more of a relaxed position.

-          While Jaden was awake he was pretty interested in the airplane seat buckle.  Reviewers of the product said that it was impossible to keep their kids in the harness because it relied on the easy-to-open airplane buckle to secure.  Jaden did want to open the buckle.  But, I let him do it a few times and then reminded him how we always buckle up in the car and we always have to buckle up in the airplane too.  I showed him how mommy was wearing her seat belt and how the people around us were also and explained that Jaden needed to wear his seatbelt too.  I also showed him the seat belt fastened light up above our heads and told him that when that light was on, the rule was that we have our seat belt fastened, and we might get in trouble if we weren’t wearing it.  All of that satisfied his curiosity and he left it alone (for the most part).  He was usually pretty anxious to get out of the harness by the end of the flight (especially when we were sitting on the ground for about 15 minutes waiting to pull up to our gate) but I just reminded him about the light, told him that when the light went off he could open the buckle, and distracted him with something else to do.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR USING THE HARNESS:

-          Show it to your child before getting on the plane.

-          Talk to your child about how they are going to get to wear a big boy/girl seatbelt on the airplane (especially if you have flown with them in your lap before).

-          Take something like a blanket or pillow to help them be comfortable when they fall asleep (and to keep their head from bobbing here, there, and everywhere.

-          Take plenty of activities to keep them entertained (of course, you were going to do that anyway, right?)

-    Shop around.  I bought mine on amazon.com and found a cheaper price including shipping. aa.com also sells one but it is exactly the same thing and about $10 more.

I’m sure we’ll get our money’s worth out of this product because we have to fly to see family (or drive 27 hours).  I learned that you can rent them if you don’t want to purchase one.

In the end…..it was SUPER easy and fast and hassle free.  That gets it a 5 STARS in my book!