Flying with kids is a totally different experience than traveling alone. As a parent you no longer get to sit and take a nap or read a book and relax on a plane like you used to be able to when traveling without kids. You are now on stage and being criticized and critiqued by other passengers who paid to have a pleasant flight. As a parent your job is to be attending to your children for the duration of the flight, to make sure that they are not ruining someone else’s experience and making the other passengers miserable. I believe you need to be prepared and armed with bag of tricks to keep your kids happy. Here is how I do it and it is all about planning ahead and being overly prepared.

I have one carry on for me and one for each child. This year they both were old enough to carry their own bags, so they each had a wheeled backpack that they happily pulled around the airports. Inside of each of their backpacks was about five of their favorite small toys, my son had a car, a semi truck, a dinosaur, a Diego toy and a fake phone. My daughter had a barbie, some barbie clothes, a tiara, a hand held video game, and a few small trinkets. I packed 10 paperback books in each of their bags, a sticker book, and I also included their favorite blanket and cuddle animal. I tossed in one change of clothes for each kid at the bottom of their bags just in case we had a juice explosion.

In my bag I pack for the worst case scenario. I have read too many stories recently about people stuck on the tarmac, overnight, inside of the plane, and I am afraid that would happen to me, so I pack as if I am ready for that to happen. I brought one compartment of my full size backpack filled with snacks, goldfish crackers, cookies, M&M’s, small suckers, and two sippy cups. In the airport I pick up 2 waters, 1 juice and 1 sprite along with a sandwich and something healthy like an apple to eat, just in case. I fill up their sippy cups on the plane with the water/juice mixture so they are drinking plenty of fluids to help avoid ear popping issues. I also have children’s melt away Tylenol tablets that I give each one a full dose prior to boarding the plane, I also bring Ear-planes earplugs to put in their ears to help regulate pressure. I always carry hand sanitizers, bandages and an emergency kit that I keep in my purse on a daily basis. My son was also not potty trained, so I packed enough diapers and wipes to get me to the next day. In the large compartment of my backpack, I pack one portable DVD player with child sized headphones, and one Net-book computer with the favorite movies loaded on, along with a video IPod and about 5 more paper back books for the kids.

While we were waiting for the plane to take off and get up to cruising altitude to use approved electronic devices, we read books, watched out the window, talked about the parts of the plane, had the first small snack, drank lots of juice, played with the mini-magna doodle and the sticker books. Once we got up to cruising altitude we turned on the movies. My daughter watched Little Mermaid and my son watched Elmo, and that entertained the kids for about 1 hour. It was nice I was able to sit and browse sky-mall in between handing out snacks. Once they got bored, we took a short trip to the bathroom so they could stretch out their legs, changed my son’s diaper, washed both of their hands, sat down, read more books, told stores, drew pictures with my fingers on their backs, played with one of the toys in their bags, and then switched the movie to see if it would regain their attention, and it did. We use a lot of technology on planes because we have it, we use video players for the 4 hour car trip to the cabin multiple times each summer. If we did not own the DVD players, I would have brought more story books and coloring books and crayons instead, it would have worked as well, but there would have been no breaks to the parent entertainment portion during that 3 hour flight.

As for my preparation and over packing, my kids were happy to have the attention, content to relax and watch their favorite movies and snack on their favorite treats at leisure. We were not stuck on the tarmac, there was no screaming, no crying, they both sat in their own seats, in their seat belts, no kicking seats, and no irritated neighbors in the plane I believe it is because my kids were paid attention to the entire time and because there was plenty of things to keep them busy and entertained. Good luck with your plane ride!

Before I left for on vacation for 10 days, I canceled my newspaper because I did not read it and it was easier than putting it on hold and then having to deal with canceling later. I felt guilty about having the paper in my house, and I did not like the space required to recycle it especially when I did not read it. The same ads and information is online and if I view them online I am not contributing to the destruction of trees and the energy and cost of recycling. Since I did not read the paper this was a good decision for me. The only reason we signed up for the paper to begin with is my husband answered the phone when a sales person gave him an amazingly low rate for a year. We paid for one full year and no longer wanted any more papers after that period.

When I was on vacation I was getting multiple messages on my cell phone each day alerting me to the fact that I had voice messages on my home phone. I would call the house phone to listen to the message and there was only multiple clicks or just plain silence recorded for up to 60 seconds on the voice mail. The same thing happened each day, most days multiple times from one of the two numbers, 1702-554-1465, 1715-254-0345. It made me concerned that someone was calling our house to try to scope it out to verify that we indeed were not home, or I was actually concerned that someone was trying to get a hold of me for an emergency, so I looked up the number. It turns out that I am not the only person receiving these calls because other people were complaining about these numbers calling their homes multiple times each day as well.

I have documented how many of these calls I have received and how many voice mail messages were left from the automated service and will be contacting Pioneer Press directly to tell them to take me off their phone call list forever. I will never subscribe to the Pioneer Press again due to the harassing nature of these phone calls. I am writing this in case someone else is trying to figure out who keeps calling them, maybe they will find this post and realize it is not an emergency, just Pioneer Press.

Most toddlers go through a very independent stage where they don’t want to hold your hand, but can not understand the dangers of why they can not run off. My son has entered this age. He used to be such a nice, calm boy who would happily hang out with me, but now he is too busy and wants to see everything at his pace, and does not want to be carried or hold onto my hand.

We were at the zoo last week and I did not have a stroller because I did not want to drag around an empty stroller so my kids can get some exercise. My son did not want to hold my hand, in fact when I tried to hold his hand he would lean away from me and hang there like dead weight, while I am holding his entire body weight by his wrist so he does not fall to the ground. To avoid walking around the whole day with a child being held up by his arm, I let him walk free. He all of a sudden decided he wanted to go see what was around the corner at his top speed. It is amazing how fast those little legs can move when he wants to! I first tried to slow him down by loudly calling for him to stop, but that did not work. Then I was the mom running after my toddler in public, while trying to make sure my older child follows the pursuit and quickly having to convince her to stop looking at the three banded armadillo and come along. Thankfully he knew that this is not a chase game, he stopped running so I was able to catch him. I got down nose to nose and told him that he has to stay by mom and he cant run away because it is dangerous.

Do I think that will be the last time he runs away? Not a chance, I think that I will chase my son occasionally for at least six more months until he is mature enough to understand that he has to stay by mom. It will be the same lesson I had to teach my daughter at the same age. She has learned that she can walk at a safe distance ahead of me but has learned that she has to stay close and be able to maintain eye contact and hear my voice at all times. Unfortunately, my son has not grasped this important safety point yet. We are going to be in an airport in a couple of weeks and I don’t want to lug around a stroller, but I am going through the internal battle if I want to be the parent with my toddler on a leash or not.

To clarify, is not really a leash, it is a monkey stuffed animal. harness, backpack with a four foot tether for an adult to hold onto, in order to keep your child close in public. It slides over his arms and has two buckles to keep it on him, along with adjustable straps and are soft. When you hold onto the tether and they take off, it slows down the child from the chest and the whole torso, not the neck or arm or any other dangerous place, and the stuffed animal monkey makes it look much more friendly to others.

Why do I consider not using it? When people who I assume did not have children saw my daughter wearing a harness they laughed or make snide remarks about me treating her like an animal. I know it is not only me who has gotten rude remarks, in public I have hard other people loudly criticize other parents walking around in public with their children wearing a harness as well. I clearly remember one man walking up to a mom asking her if her child has to eat on the floor like a dog too, I was horrified for her.

I decided that for the safety of my son and for the convenience of not having to abandon my daughter in public to chase after my toddler, I will harness my son. He may not like being contained by the tether any more than he likes holding onto my hand, but I will not be afraid of pulling his arm out of the socket when he decides to jerk away from me. I decided that I am much more vocal with my second child, and sure in my decisions than I was with my first. This time when someone makes a rude remark about my son being on a leash, I will just smile and reply, “You must not have kids, or you would understand!”

Do you have a closet full of clothes but don’t know what you should keep and what you should get rid of?

At the beginning of each clothing season, turn all of your hangers backwards. When you replace the clothes after wearing them once turn them forwards. What you have not worn at the end of a season or at the end of the year you should donate or sell at a consignment sale and help un-clutter your life. If you can live without it for an entire year you don’t need it, and it will free up room to buy something new and fun!

Do you have kids that loose one glove or mitten all winter long?

I buy some thick elastic and cut it so that is about 3 inches shorter than the length of the sleeves of their winter coat. I sew a couple of stitches to connect the elastic to the gloves. Pull the gloves or mittens through the jacket making sure the right glove is on the right side, and you will have a pair of mittens all winter long. My kids have not lost a mitten since I started this 2 years ago.

Today my husband handed me an envelope from the U.S. Census Bureau with a big United States Census 2010 logo on the front. I said outloud, “Oooh the Census form!” I opened it up with a pen in hand, ready to fill it out, but instead of the census form, it was the following letter:

Dear Resident:
One week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail.
When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly.

Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get their fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

Robert M. Groves
Director, U.S. Census Bureau

So why do I care? They sent out a letter, to let us know we would get a letter in one week. Why could they not have included this letter along with the census form and saved the millions of dollars in postage to mail this one page letter to each residence in the United States?

A letter to announce a letter. Thanks U.S. Census Bureau for showing us another great example of our tax dollars at work!