Busy Box

We travel a good amount and now that Briggs is more active and mobile, it's a challenge to keep him happy in his seat for our frequent 7 hour trip to Baton Rouge.  I came up with this idea of a busy box that I thought might be helpful to share...

I made a trip to the Dollar Tree and spent around $10 for these fun items...

I personally think it's more challenging with boys b/c they aren't in to baby dolls and stuff like that. 

If you can't tell what is in the pic:

flashlight, measuring spoons, calculator,  harmonica, hot wheels, small pkg of ice breakers (something to rattle), back massager, a couple of books and a little container to put the small things in.

I organize things to where we can get to them when traveling...we had two baskets next to Briggs..one with some books in them and one with his busy box and few other toys.  You see the cooler...with drinks and snacks, and then on the floor board, is the snack bag.  I prepackage snacks before a trip so they are easy to get to and hand to him when he is hungry.

Here is the little guy unloading his busy box.  It worked for about 30 minutes..then we could rotate it with a few other activities and he was ready to play with it again. 

This is his "focus face"

 

And here is another picture of my little cutie with all this toys loaded up in his seat :)

I would say overall it was a success.  I kept his "busy box" hidden before the trip and also hid some of his favorite toys and books so he was excited to use them in the car.  That worked pretty well.

So between naps, snacks, playing with books, his busy box, stopping for rest breaks...it made the trip a little less painful with a 15 month old.  I would definitely recommend it for long trips with kids.