Friday, July 20, 2007

Some random thoughts that I have been stretching my brain to remember.

A few weeks before we moved Adam read a scripture reading at church, when he was walking up front my son stood up next to me to see him better. Then he looked at me and very loudly said, "That your honey, Mommy that your honey?" I didn't know whether to turn beat red or start laughing!

I also like how lately he'll ask to talk to his Dad on the phone and ask him "Where are you going for?" I'm not sure if he means "where are you going" or "what for" or maybe both - who knows.

Things that worked to keep my 2 year old son entertained on a 10 hour drive. (The way there we split up into two days so it was a bit easier but the way home we did the whole thing in 11 hours total so we were pushing it.)

  • Having some little "guys" and matchbox cars for him to play with worked for a little while
  • Three disposable super 8 motel cups bought about 30 - 40 minutes of stacking and creating caves for his cars and guys.
  • Silly putty was the biggest hit, he'd pass it up to me to make a snake or a ball over and over again in between playing with it himself. I'd say he did this for at least an hour each way.
  • A smaller sized magna doodle was also a big hit - it was a new toy for him that he'd only played with friends houses.
  • Stickers - tons of stickers - I bought one of those books with 1000 stickers in it. They clean up easily enough and we'd ask him to stick them on body parts or he'd just play sticking them all over the carseat.
  • A roll of scotch tape. This may have worked a little better if he were a bit older and could rip the tape himself, but even though he couldn't tear the tape he still had fun unrolling the roll and I would tear it for him when he wanted. He just made tape balls and shapes, I suppose if you were very organized you could actually bring something for them to tear and tape together - might work on an airplane with the sky magazine? Who knows!
  • A movie. On the way home he lasted 5 and a half hours before we offered the movie which even though both Adam and I feel that we survived with out them on many long car trips, Curious George was mighty nice about then.
  • Each way 20 minutes of fussing was required before the total knockout! He actually did nap both ways - imagine that!

Eating meals in the car on the way home helped to take up time too, and of course snacks. All in all our little guy was a trooper and the little girl didn't decide to move and kick like crazy too far from a rest room!!!!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where were these ideas when traveling with my toddlers? Oh! They were in your head yet to bloom!!! Joking aside - you are very creative!
Love you,

Stephanie Appleton said...

Great ideas!

Scarlet said...

Long car rides and bored kids don't mix well. By the way, these ideas work for older kids, too. A little planning makes for an easier trip.

Jamie said...

Hey, great ideas Heidi!
I will have to keep these in mind for later!

Unknown said...

Im going to have to save this list for our trip back from China!

Amy said...

Hey girl - We are going to make the journey to Disney this winter and it will be ten hours in the car. I did something similar before, and bought a handful of movies on Half.Com before we left. I also took them to the store and we picked out a few candy things so we could pretend that we were at the movies. God was good. It was 12 hours in the car, just me and the kids, and we did great. Pray we can do it again!
Check out Half.Com next time. Great surprises for cheap!
Amy