Tomorrow I’ll be waking the girls up at 3 in the morning to fly to AMERICA!! Wahoo! We’re so excited.
I wish I could tell you that I’m one of those super moms that organizes all kinds of educational activities, toys, and boredom busters for their kids when they fly, but I’m not. Instead I have a dvd player and 14 hours of battery life back-ups. Perhaps if I were flying with my husband or another adult, I would try harder, but when I’m by myself with a 2 and 4 year old, it’s just about sheer survival.
Ok, before you think I’m the worst mom ever, I do have the bare minimum of entertainment supplies:
But really I’m just hoping they’ll zombie out in front of the movie screen and fall asleep.
In the hopes of persuading my 4 yr old to help with the carry-ons during our layover and not have any meltdowns, I thought I’d help her take ownership of her very important job. So I made her this little “Special Helper” badge. She is already super excited about wearing it and the job that goes with it.
I printed the text onto white fabric using Susan’s print-on-fabric tutorial (ha! I just noticed that she wrote that tutorial exactly 1 year ago today! Sorry, I get overly excited about random coincidences.)
Then I just sewed the ric rac around, glued some felt to the back, and sewed on velcro to attach it to her shirt. I had to sew one side of the velcro onto the actual shirt, but I figured that would be safer than a pin and I can just rip out the stitches when we’re done. Easy and hopefully effective!
And don’t think I’m above ripping it off her shirt and making her earn it back either (another bonus of using velcro). I’m manipulative like that.
Good luck- I hope they surprise you with good behavior like mine did on oiur recent Miami-Madrid flight.
i hope you have a good flight. you seem really well prepared anyway, and by the way nobody expects you to do anything educational or so on a long haul flight, just get there in one piece:-)
i flew with my then 18 months old twins by myself for 24 hours, (yes we moved here from the other side of the world), and heaps of people helped my out. most people will probabyl feel sorry for you and help you out or look after the kids for a few minutes or entertain them for a while. have a nice stay in america.
barbara
Good luck! I love the special helper badge. Great idea!
Aw, that’s a cute and sweet idea! Much better than the ever so helpful ‘Baby Nyquil’ suggestion I was given for a flight with my DD once. Although there was a brief point in the flight where I thought maybe it wasn’t such a horrible horrible suggestion after all, but it was very brief and fleeting and I felt bad for even thinking it.
Have a safe flight and a great stay! Good luck, I think your kids will do great, Eve always amazes me with her good behavior on these long flights. The portable dvd player always works its magic! – See you when you get back, say Hi to S for us. -Kim
Good luck – the special helper badge is a great idea :)
lol too funny! I hope she earns and keeps her badge! Does this mean you’ll be in my area?
happy traveling! looks like you’ll be all set. love that special helper badge, I know Natalie would love one of those. :)
I think your very brave traveling alone with a 2 and 4 year old, having a 2 and 4 year old myself I can understand survival comes first! great idea about the badge I might just do the same when we go to the states in May, good call!
Oh I didn’t know you were flying! Did you see Jennifer’s airplane trays? She did a whole series for traveling with the two girls. I love the special helper badge! That’s great!!! Here’s Jennifer’s post:
http://parrishplatz.blogspot.com/2010/08/airplane-tray.html
whew! good luck! I hope the DVD player works!
Mmmm. Happy Hippos! :) Hope your flight went well!
Safe travels! Pack their PJs so you can encourage the snoozing!!
Good luck traveling with two!! And spacing out in front of a portable DVD player is my idea of bliss. Great suggestion on the badges. I will definitely keep this in the back of my mind on my first long distance travel with my little one!