Earplanes
Elliot thinks that name is so funny. Earplanes. I am always amazed at how many people have not heard of these, and after someone inquired on Instagram (Clementine is wearing them in this picture), I thought some of you might be interested.
You can find these at just about any drugstore, and the "kids and smaller ears" size just fits Clementine, who is now 3 and, as we discovered on the way to and from Florida last month, really knows how to throw a tantrum when the airplane ascends/descends. Also, what's with the apostrophe in the word "kids?" I know I'm no Punctuation Queen but seriously. I feel like it should be after the "s" or not at all. And Comic Sans. Really???Anyway, they are soft-ish and have a little filter in them that allows the air to go into and out of your ear canal more gently, so while you still get a little bit of "popping" from the pressure changes, they really help a ton. They won't really fit kids much younger than three; they need to be old enough to understand and let you put them in and such.Actually, you want to know my secret weapon for flying with kids under three? SMARTIES. Those tiny little sour candies. I remember when Elliot was one and a half and he'd barely had a piece of candy in his life and we had to fly somewhere. I took a bag of smarties along and used one roll going up, and one roll going down, handing him a single Smarty (?) one by one until we were up in the air. The sour-ness of them makes you swallow more than other candy and they best part is that they make no mess. There's very little choking hazard because they're about the size of a cheerio and dissolve quickly (though, don't give them to a child under one).
Here are some of the presents my mom gave the kids while we were in Seattle that also came in handy on the plane ride home. She made that cute pencil pouch for Clementine from Gwenny Penny's tutorial. Would make a great stocking stuffer, no?Anyway, I'm sure many of you have travel tricks up your sleeve that I don't know about, so feel free to share. Plenty of readers still have holiday traveling with small children ahead of them and would appreciate the tips!