We’re packing up the car again this weekend, heading down to visit family in southern Ontario. It’s been quite a while since our last road trip, and I cant’ wait to hit the road.
I don’t know whether car trips are getting easier now that the boys are getting older, or whether they’re just becoming better travellers, or whether I just stress less. Whatever it is, it’s working for me! I used to spend hours preparing for a car trip, gathering supplies like crayons, books, toys, and of course a good supply of DVDs. We’ll be hooking up the DVD player again, of course, and I’ll encourage the big boys to select a book or two, but I know most of the trip will be spent in electronically mediated bliss. The DS and the iTouch are charging as we speak!
Speaking of iTouch and iPhones, if you were at Blissdom Canada, you might have seen and even received one of these. Fisher-Price has just released a great new item, the Laugh and Learn Apptivity Case. If you’ve ever had drool-marks or goldfish smudges on your iPhone, you’ll love this one! From the Fisher-Price Canada site:
The Laugh & Learn™ Apptivity™ Case lets babies enjoy their very own apps while protecting mom or dad’s iPhone or iTouch! Simply place the Apple device into the case, twist the lock, and the electronic is protected from baby’s dribbles and drool. Download free Fisher-Price® Laugh & Learn™ apps from iTunes! Babies love to learn when their interactive touches control the action!
(Huh. I had no idea Fisher-Price had free downloadable apps.)
I love the idea of the Apptivity Case. It protects your iPhone/iTouch from sticky fingers, from being dropped, and from being lost. I have to tell you, even though Lucas is a little bit above the target age for this, I thought about keeping it just so I’d be able to find my phone more easily. I think I accidentally activated the invisibility shield app on mine, because I find myself calling the number every couple of days just so I can find the thing hiding out in the open or lost in the dark recesses of my purse.
But instead, I thought it would be fun to offer this up as a giveaway. Want it? You know you do! And wouldn’t it make a fun Christmas gift? Here’s how to enter:
- The prize a new Fisher-Price Apptivity Case.
- To enter, leave a comment on this post sharing an idea on how to keep kids entertained when you’re on the go — in the car, at a restaurant, waiting for an appointment.
- Contest opens today, November 10 and runs through Wednesday November 16, 2011 at noon EDT.
- One winner will be chosen via random.org and announced on this post by Thursday November 17, 2011.
- You must be willing to share your mailing address with me to receive the prize.
- Void where prohibited by law, including the province of Quebec.
Good luck!
(Disclosure: I am part of the Fisher-Price Play Panel and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. However, the opinions on this blog are entirely my own.)
Edited to add: Congratulations to Emily, lucky #1 and winner of the Apptivity Case. Thanks to everyone who played along!
My best tip for keeping the kids busy is to play along! Tell them a crazy story, join in on their funny games, sing songs to them, ask questions about what they see, etc. So much more fun to be a part of the fun, than to fight it 🙂
My best tip is take lots of snacks and travel games/toys
My best tip is to keep handy activities in my purse and to interact with my child when we are out no matter how rushed or busy we are
A game that has kept our whole family entertained through the years when we’ve travelled is one we picked up from a restaurant placemat in the US. We’ve adjusted it slightly, but the basic idea is to have a list of things that have to be spotted on the trip (only while actually driving). Whoever finds all of them is the winner – and then you start the game all over again (depending on how long the trip is). The original list included horse, cow, barn, plane, police car, fire engine, ambulance, school, church, flag, and logging truck, plus the restaurant that the placemat was from. Since it wasn’t a chain found in Canada, we substituted a Volkswagen beetle in place of it. You can do up a bingo-type card so the kids can keep track of what they’ve spotted and substitute any item that is more likely found in your area.
Our guy is only 10 months, so I think our traveling woes are still ahead of us, but for now we mostly try to do longer trips while he’s sleeping and have a great CD (Francis England -Mind of My Own) which he seems to enjoy grooving from his carseat to when awake.
We entertain by DVD players, reading books and playing Ispy!
Cheesy though it may sound, especially in light of this post, we entertain the Little Man with the iPhone, along with singing (which we both love), “I Spy” and other similar games and the portable DVD player.
We sing along to a Sharon, Lois and Brahm CD (well, The Boy only likes 3-4 songs so we play them over and over). When we (or he) can’t stand stand that any more, we do the same thing with the Bob the Builder theme song except most times, it’s a capella since I only downloaded the song recently and it’s not quite the same as what’s on TV. I also use the term “we” rather loosely since most times, it’s just me singing and my husband trying desperately to tune us out.
I keep some smal lnotebooks and a pack of crayons in my purse to keep the kids entertained.
If it’s been a really long time, I usually resort to giving my little guy the car keys. I know it’s horrible but you do what you have to do. The Apptivity case sounds amazing!
We like playing the license plate game… You take a license plate in front of u and see who can come up with the best sentence/ word combos. To make it harder u can choose specific topics. Fun for adults and children!!