My #1 Child Amuser

I’ve flown close to a million miles and spent countless hours sitting in airports and on planes with children and now grandchildren. I was the lady scrunched partially under an airplane seat trying to gather up fallen crayons. It was my voice you heard reading Make Way For Ducklings over and over again. And I was the women staggering through the airport with a child on one hip, carrying a backpack loaded with games, crayons and books (all that weight was probably responsible for a herniated disk).

It took over 30 years but I’ve come up with THE number one child-under-six amuser. A roll of INVISIBLE TAPE IN A PLASTIC DISPENSER, commonly known as Scotch tape. (You can buy a roll of generic for $1.00 a roll or less.) Haven’t a clue where this brainstorm came from but it worked so well, I have to pass it on.

Flying with three-year old granddaughter on a family vacation, Dani sat next to me and I, brilliantly, had thrown a tape dispenser in my backpack. Pulled it out and Dani set to work. We made bracelets out of tape and wound long strings of tape on each other. Taped the food trays shut on the seat backs in front of us. Started tearing up whatever paper we could find, made long daisy chains and taped them on the seats. Taped little pieces of paper together and hung them from the arm rest. Taped Grandpa’s mouth shut. (Warning: Please make sure that you buy a dispenser with a plastic cutting edge. Metal cutting edges and three-year olds are a dangerous combination.) That one little tape dispenser kept her busy, quiet and engrossed for well over one hourpretty close to a miracle for someone that age.

Try it with your children or grandchildren but don’t tell them about it. Wait until you are at your wits end with not one drop of patience left, and child is about to have a major meltdown. That’s the moment for the tape dispenser to magically appear from your purse or backpack and watch what happens! It was worth losing arm hair and, hopefully, the tape exfoliated my skin when we peeled everything off before the plane landed. And I’m sure the airline personnel were also very grateful that we untaped the food trays and removed all the other tape dangling everywhere. Great fun for both of us.

Another never-fail child-amuser for babies (perhaps you’ve already tried this) – a box of tissues. Let the little one pull out one after another until the box is empty. Babies think this is magical and mesmerizing. Of course you then have to pick up over 100 sheets of tissue from everywhere, but the silence is priceless…

Have a great flight!