mama vs. airplane

keywords: quiet, clean, compact, busy, null-cry, chance of a rare-and-treasured minute of peace.

• Mantra: “I’ve got this.”

• Toddler Book: Where’s Waldo? The Totally Essential Travel Collection for endless, wordless, and independent searching and “story-reading.”

• Emergency Only: For instant, emergency, 5-10 minutes of quiet, keep these on hand: YumEarth Organic Pops. They literally require a shut-mouth to work.

• Something new and pocket-friendly (for the toddler):  Schleich Mini Dinosaur Set. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Winking @ all the mommas of 4-year olds out there.

• An invisible backpack. Ie. It packs down to absolutely nothing when not in use. Osprey makes a great one/everything.

• (Only)-Water “Color” Books: Seriously occupying. And all you need is a bit of water. No mess. Lots of busy hands.

• Other mouth-occupying, non-messy, snack ideas: Elk jerky. Tamari almonds. Raisins in the tiny “busy-hand” boxes. Raw bars. Dried mango slices.

• Melissa & Doug Tape Activity Book: Lots of activity. Little mess and taking. #winwin

• Ipad & Kid headphones. There’s a time and place for screen time, and this is it.

• It flashed on me during this trip that an airplane seat travel harness makes a lot of sense for the under-two crowd if you don’t have a carseat with you.  Not for safety, but because lock-down mode inspires sleep in the way a carseat does. #prioritiesstraight

• On the above note, ENSURE your car seat is airplane-friendly. It needs some kind of FAA approved sticker. I had no idea. And they (#$@%@$) made us gate-check our carseat. Learn from our pain.

• Bottle mini/travel cooler. For both the plane and beach.

• Kindle PaperWhite: This is on my personal, single-person, travel packing list. But I recently discovered that you can download kids books for free as well onto it! Huge bonus on a quiet day when your preschooler just needs a NEW book. Downside: black and white on the Paperwhite. Hard to navigate. Not even easy to download or organize. Upside: A cache of never-read books in the palm of your hand. And we all know how far new goes.