21st Century Toddler Travel, Part II

As promised, I will now reveal the Number One toddler travel strategy for parents facing an airplane journey with a little tyke. Seems it's all about unwrapping small surprises. The sheer thrill of a wrapped 'prize begging to be torn into is just too, too exciting for a little one. So much so, that just the thought of impending unwrappiness is enough  to keep a kid on his best behavior.

Mom and Dad brought along a bag o' tricks (mentioned in my previous post) which included lots of small toys, crayons, and the like individually wrapped in cute wrapping paper. Daughter reports that GrandBoy didn't care nearly as much about what was inside the wrapping as he did about actually tearing off the paper. Ain't that always the way? So, hit the dollar store or the $1 bin at Target for the surprises. Spend your effort wrapping your finds.

Another popular activity was iPad games. GrandBoy has his favorites, so he knew what to do. And any time Mom lets him play around with her iPad is pretty special. Enough to keep him occupied for a while. Until it was time to open another little giftie. Of course, at the end of Liam's first plane ride was the promise of Disneyland and a big hug from Mickey Mouse. Yeah, the trip had a lot going for it.

The impending journey caused a lot of pre-journey stress, but, fortunately, GrandBoy's airplane behavior proved not to be a problem. Whew! In fact, he enjoyed the plane ride. He didn't give any trouble about staying in his seat with his seat belt on. (I'm sure it helped that his mom and dad were strapped in on either side of him.) And he slept most of the way back to Atlanta, even though the parental units were armed with more little wrapped packages. I'm sure it made for a pleasant journey for all contained within the plane.

Now, I don't know whether this works for every child, but it worked for Liam. Who knows if the same tricks will apply next time? We shall see. At least in the end he got a hug from Mickey.