The Paper Dart
An ode to creativity and distraction

Road Tripping With Toddlers!

I remember the first road trip Dan and I took with our daughter, Margot. She was about four months old, and we were driving up to San Francisco (a 7 hour trip with a few pockets of traffic) to visit Dan’s family. Before we left, we reassured ourselves that “it would be fine” and “Margot will sleep most of the way!”

Needless to say, we arrived exhausted, angry, and covered in poop.

Today’s road trips are a little easier, since both kids are out of the exploding diaper stage of life. We’re also a little more experienced, and a lot more prepared. So, for my own memory’s sake, and because it could, potentially, help another mama out, I compiled a list of all the junk we bring along to make a day in the car with kids a little less traumatizing for everyone.

The Gang – Ready to Go.

Books and Toys:

Drawing Boards: We do a LOT of drawing on road trips, and at home. In fact, my fridge is currently covered with “portraits” of our family which are cute in a certain light, but also the things nightmares are made of. Out of all of the drawing boards linked below, Margot loves the Magna Doodle the best. It comes with a pen and stamps, and is only $12. She also seems to enjoy the LCD drawing board, and Max really loves chewing on the “pencils,” so that one is also a win for all.

Water Wow is our ABSOLUTE favorite travel toy, and we have taken them everywhere with us. Margot and Max can use them in the car, as well as in hotels, at the pool, etc. These are also a great toy to whip out when cooking or doing chores. Just watch out for when your kids learn how to unscrew the water container from the brush–Max recently chugged some of the water, and it may or may not have been about 5 months old.

Drawing Toys:

Other Toys:

Reusable Stickers: We have several sets of sliding glass doors in our house and they are all covered with these Melissa and Doug Reusable Stickers. The stickers are made of plastic, and “cling” vs. “stick,” so they won’t destroy your walls and windows like normal stickers. We bring these in the car and stick them on the windows, the back of the seat, or onto nearby little brothers.

Leapfrog Laptop: I am not a tech-toy person, but I actually kind of love this Leapfrog laptop. It has a few different functions, but Margot really enjoys the letter setting, which allows her to practice matching letter sounds with the correct key. I oftentimes find battery operated “educational” toys to be anything but “educational,” but Margot seems to have really learned something from this one.

Beads for Babies: Max is just beginning to figure out these giant Montessori beads, and Margot has been doing them for a while. They are probably best suited to a 2 year old, but we’ll still bring them along this time.

Magnetic Maze: Margot loves this Hape fish maze and, even though she doesn’t play with it for very long, she tends to go back to it at least a few times per trip. It also seems to be appropriate for the 30+ age demographic, because I enjoy it as well.

Books for Max (15 Months)

Margot can disappear into the brain-melting world of Frozen II for hours in the car, but Max is still to young to be really interested in T.V. So, I plan on spending at least a portion of the trip in the backseat with him, reading up a storm. Max’s current favorite book is “Where’s the Bear,” and he is truly delighted when we find every animal behind the felt flap. He also likes to make sure he points out (and blabbers about) all the other animals on each page.

The rest of the books linked below allow Max to practice pointing at objects or “asking” me what things are (aka grunt-crying and slapping the page), which seems to be his big developmental leap of late. The Curious George puppet book is also always sure to elicit a giggle or two.

Other “Essentials”

Potty: We always bring our OXO Tot Potty in the car, even for short trips. On this trip, we want to avoid taking the kids into public restrooms (which are already kind of traumatic during non-pandemic times), so they will be using this when we stop. You can have them pee directly onto the ground (only if you’re in the middle of nowhere, of course), or buy disposable bags that fit over the seat.

Toy Basket: I try to pack toys, games, and books in a basket, as opposed to a bag or backpack. We use this basket, and place it on the floor below my daughter’s car seat. It’s a lot easier to see and find toys this way, and Margot can just chuck things back in when she’s done with them.

Puke (or poop) Bucket: I always bring a bucket on car trips, especially if we’re headed to the mountains. I get carsick and, although they haven’t shown signs of doing so yet, I’m sure at least one of my children will inherit this trait.

Hydration Supplies: I love these Nuk Straw Cups because they fit into the car seat cup holders better than any of the water bottles we own. The lid twists up to hide the straw, but I’ve never had a spill even with the straw out. They’re also dishwasher safe because WHO HAS TIME TO HAND WASH??!

Click to Shop the List:

Screen Time is NOT the enemy:

Screen time limits are all well and good, but not on the road or in the airport. While I usually try to start every trip with our most low-tech toys and games, I am not ashamed to say my kid has watched 4 straight hours of T.V. on a plane.

We recently purchased a family IPad (I know, I’m about 1,000 years behind), but we also have a Kindle Fire, which we use more often when travelling (it’s also way cheaper, so you don’t have to be as worried about your kid rage-smashing it into the flight-attendant cart…).

Below I have compiled a few of our favorite Apps and shows for both the IPad, and the Kindle. You can thank me when you arrive safely (and silently) at your destination.

IPad Apps:

Montessorium: This is a whole family of Apps, and they are definitely our most used, and most loved. All of the Apps are so simple and allow kids to practice skills like letter tracing, letter identification and basic phonics skills. Margot’s current favorite is actually “Intro To United States,” which asks her to identify the states based on their shape. It is truly alarming how many I get wrong when I play with her. There aren’t a lot of bells and whistles in these apps, but they can entertain my daughter for a while, and she’s learned a thing or two from them as well.

ABC Mouse: This one is a subscription service, and is priced at about $60 per year (you can pay in installments too). Some of the games get a little repetitive, and I wish there was a way to opt out of certain types of activities in the learning pathway but, overall, my daughter really enjoys it. I think that it has definitely helped her with letter and sound recognition, as well as general tech skills. I also like that it has a digital “library” that my daughter can use to have books read to her when we’re on the road.

Kindle Fire Apps:

Books: The Kindle allows you to download a ton of interactive kids books. We have everything from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, to Frozen 5 Minute Stories. I feel better about handing these over than a movie and, when the computer does the reading, I don’t have to personally soldier through the torture that is Frozen 5 Minute Stories.

Sesame Street & Daniel Tiger: Both of these PBS shows have companion Apps which allow kids to practice early reading and math skills, while also living vicariously in the world of their favorite shows. I have actually played the Sesame Street one while Margot was asleep on the plane, and truly enjoyed it.

Shows:

Disney +:

Bluey: This is the cutest show on earth. The episodes are SHORT (like 7 minutes), which is perfect if you need to entertain your kid while you briefly complete a chore, change a diaper, or pop a squat (as the old people say). The show is about a family of Australian Shepherds who engage in some super adorable imaginative play: my favorite is when they create a pretend “hotel,” known for its “crazy pillows” (aka children pretending to be pillows). Parents will also enjoy the truly engaging personalities and antics of the adult dogs (like when the grown-up dogs get a little sloshed at the neighborhood BBQ). In my professional opinion, it deserves 6/5 stars.

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (MMC): This one is for “emergencies only.” While kids (and adults) can actually get a lot out of the other shows on this list, MMC is more useful if you want to induce a tantrum-taming zone-out. I find it a little annoying, and pretty over-stimulating, but my daughter loves it. (Go figure). 3/5, but good to have on the back-burner.

PBS Kids:

Sesame Street: I don’t think I really need to explain this one. The website also has great free coloring pages that Margot loves.

P.S: if you at all enjoy reality T.V., and haven’t seen this yet, you’re welcome.

Prime Video:

Daniel Tiger: This show has taught me how to parent. I probably sing the “If you feel so mad…” song at least once a week (sometimes to myself). Its basically an updated version, of the feel-good, be-good Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. And there are plenty of games and books to go with it. Another 6/5.

The Berenstain Bears: Yes! There’s a T.V. show! All of the classic books come to life in this very sweet show. But be warned, the theme song is very catchy. 5/5.

The Snowy Day: The beloved book by Ezra Jack Keats has been expanded upon in this lovely short movie (its a little under 40 minutes long). It was fun to watch my daughter recognize the main character, and style of illustration, and the story touches on some really important themes for youngsters (especially ones that are a little bit reckless like my own). Another 5/5.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS! I hope you enjoyed and drop me a comment about how YOUR road trips are faring these days!

Quarantine Toy Roundup

Quarantine has turned my home into a really shady preschool. I have never been super organized (or organized at all really), but the number of toys, art projects, chunks of dog hair (?!), etc. laying around the house are currently at an all time high. The other day I was trying to strain pasta, and couldn’t find the sieve. When I asked Margot where it was, she told me to “hold on a sec,” and grabbed it from the backyard. She had been using it to collect “sticks and slugs.” Cool. But the good news is, we never have guests anymore, so WHO THE HECK CARES? 

We initially moved to California because I am not good at being inside for long periods of time. We spent most of Margot’s first three years at the beach, the park, the mountains, museums, etc. Never in a million years did I think a pandemic would hit and I would lose my mind on Amazon looking for toys that could replace Disneyland or “the woods.” But alas, here we are. 

In the past 3 months, we have bought a truly shameful number of toys. Some great, and some that I have already rage-donated. So, I thought it might be helpful to some other stir-crazy mamas if I included a list of our most-loved quarantine toys on the blog today. I have organized the list based on which kid(s) play with them most, and even included one that I bought for myself. Let me know what you think, and if your kiddos love any of these toys too!

Full disclosure: This may just be part 1 of a who knows how long series.  

Max: 14 months

Cement Mixer

Max is at prime shape-sorting age. He still doesn’t quite understand the idea of turning the shapes around to make them fit, so he often gets frustrated and tries to hulk-smash this toy. Sometimes I guide his hand, but other times I let him struggle. When he fails, he collapses in grief, but when he figures it out, the amazement on his face is PRICELESS.

Bag Shape Sorter

This toy is very similar to the one above, but Max loves carrying it around by the handle. This is one of the few toys Margot “helps” him with, as they both love filling it with random objects and pretending its a suitcase for “vacations,” which are now just another thing I have to explain away as a relic of the old world order.

Push Around Buggy (Car)

We bought this for Margot for her 1st birthday because she was refusing to sit in the stroller. Max (go figure) loves the stroller, but also enjoys this. The horn is his favorite feature, and our elderly neighbors are always delighted when he shrieks and honks at them on our evening walks.

Margot: 3 Years

Face Paint

Margot’s favorite part of any birthday party is the face paint. (If you are hosting a party for toddlers and did not hire a teenager to paint her face, she will not shy away from sharing her disappointment.) Since there are no birthday parties in sight for us in the near future, this has been a fun substitute. This kit comes with stencils, but it’s also pretty easy to look up face paint pictures on Google and do a decent imitation. We usually do this when Max is asleep, and, yes, she likes to give me “princess crowns,” which is really just code for “ALL of the green paint.”

Daniel Tiger Board Game

This is a super cute introduction to board games for toddlers. It’s basically a tiny model of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, and the players have to go around the board filling their “backpacks” with items from stores and giving “gifts” to other players. It has helped us practice taking turns, being patient and sharing. We also play by Margot’s rules some of the time, which make no sense, and mostly involve her hoarding all of the items on the board. Less fun for me, but thrilling for her.

Lego Dollhouse

I really wanted to get Margot a dollhouse. And by that, I mean I really wanted to get myself a dollhouse. But right now, Margot isn’t really into dolls or dollhouses. However, she loves Legos, which has made this a really great toy for the whole family. We have spent several weekend mornings redesigning the house (there are directions for constructing several different layouts), and Margot seems to be more motivated to play with the tiny family after actually constructing their home herself.

BEADS!

These were really a gift for me. (See last section.)

Both: (Max, 14 Months and Margot, 3 Years)

Grocery Cart

We have a toy grocery store to go with this, but they honestly like the carts better. They tend to use them bumper-car style: Each kid grabs a cart and they run around the room screaming until they eventually ram into one another and spill their “groceries” everywhere. They also use them to cart other toys around the house, and then get mad later when they can’t find said toys.

Reusable Stickers (for sticker book or windows!)

We initially bought these for a plane trip pre-pandemic. On the plane, Margot played with them in the book for a while, but really enjoyed sticking them to the windows and tray table of the plane. At home, we usually play with them on the sliding glass doors. Margot will fiddle around with these INDEPENDENTLY for 10 minutes or so at a time, making up little stories or “movies” with the different people/animals. She has recently starting teaching Max how to play as well. It’s a great “do something while I make dinner” activity.

Me: 32 Years

I have been making bead bracelets with Margot for a few months now, and have found the process to be very therapeutic. However, I don’t love actually wearing these enormous, animal-shaped, chunky bead bracelets. So I bought myself the kind of bead kit that I had at camp as a kid and have spent many a night peacefully beading away. Dan thinks its weird, but I give it an 11/10.

Why I’m Here.

“We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy. Something’s missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I’d burned in ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help.”

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Last week, I started to feel a little crazy. I have been self-isolating with my family for a long time and, as the weeks have turned into months, I find myself spending more hours of more evenings lost on the internet. I know I am not alone in the fact that I have always used social media as an escape – a way to check out from my messy reality and “recharge.” I have also, at times, used it as a substitute for real social connection. During times in my life when real community was lacking – my first years in new cities, and my first months as a new mom to name a few – I have found myself turning to my phone to fill the empty spaces. The current state of the world hasn’t made things any easier, and I know that many of us have been clinging to technology even more obsessively in a desperate attempt to ease the loneliness.

My son Max and our shared love: my phone.

About a week ago, I found myself starting to become so preoccupied with content I was following online that I felt distracted and out of focus in the truly important parts of my day. When I complained to my husband about how I was feeling, and the compounding guilt I felt about feeling these feelings, he laughed at me. In the way, of course, that only someone who is lovingly aware of your self-destructive behavior patterns can. 

“You’re living through a pandemic,” he said. “You’re lonely and probably a little depressed. You should put your phone down and read a book.”

Sounds easy enough, right? And some nights it is. But other nights, I still find myself so caught up in the things I know are bringing me down. Like Instagram. I have deleted and re-added this app to my phone about 129497394 times since quarantine began. 

I’m not going to hate on Instagram entirely, despite the fact that I am definitely going to delete it from my phone again at some point this week. Instagram, and the internet in general, has been positive for me in a lot of ways: it allowed me to reconnect with childhood friends, and find support and community when I was dealing with infertility. Yet, while I am SO grateful for many of the people I have connected with online, I also find myself struggling to balance the good with the toxic. More often than not, I turn to Instagram, not for real connection, but to be voyeuristic, and feel the thrill of “spying” on people who have purposely thrown open the curtains of their lives for me. I search for things that are pretty, or low-stakes. A cute summer dress, for example, that might distract me from the looming sense of dread concerning the state of mine and my children’s futures that is often lying in wait at the back of my brain. When I turn off my phone at the end of the night, I’m usually in a pretty weird place. My brain feels elated, but I certainly don’t. 

Books, on the other hand, are kind of messy. When my husband suggested that I pick the book I was reading back up, I reminded him that I was reading Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, and that it probably wouldn’t make me feel any less depressed. But then again, that’s probably part of the point.

Unlike mindless scrolling, books don’t always make me happy. Sometimes they actually make me super sad. But, they do push me to put my problems into perspective. They take me out of my own head, and into someone else’s. Books remind me that it is possible to really know someone, even when they are always changing. Writers who understand humanity so completely that they are able to create characters out of thin air give me so much faith in our ability to really see and be seen by others, even when the people we are painting for each other aren’t real. 

In the world of Fahrenheit 451, everyone has turned away from books. People defame authors as confusing and contradictory and seemingly pointless. A lot of people (myself included) have drawn frightening parallels between our world and that of Bradbury’s novel, claiming that the next generation is so lost in their phones that we’ll never find them. 

However, I don’t think you have to be a literary scholar to benefit from book therapy. I think the teens (and adults, because, let’s keep it real) can keep learning TikToks and worshiping confounding YouTube celebrities, and still keep one foot rooted on the ground. I, myself, can keep hunting for the perfect floppy hat to help me achieve the ever so elusive Anne of Green Gables-Lauren Conrad vibe I’ve been going for, while also putting down my phone at 8 to read Dracula before bed. Everyone’s attention is being pulled in a million directions, and I think asking for all of it or, honestly, even most of it, is unrealistic. 

In addition to being a phone addict and an over-thinker, I’m also a middle school teacher. When I read with my class, most kids only connect with a small portion of the book. It could be a chapter or a page, or, more often than not, a single line. A lot of it, they can’t understand because they aren’t ready yet. After I read a book, I definitely don’t remember most of what happened either. Usually, what sticks with me is a line or two, maybe a page or a chapter. There have been times when I forgot most of a book’s plot, but was truly shaken by a single word. I have read such small pieces of text that have opened my eyes to errors in my judgment, or pointed me in the right direction. Quotes that have helped me better understand myself, someone I love, or someone I don’t. Paragraphs that pointed out my ignorance, or highlighted how I actually might know more than I thought I did. 

So I guess my goal for this blog is two-fold. I need a reason to write, because it makes me feel full and it keeps the worry at bay. And I want to share pieces of what makes teaching English so special to me–those small paragraphs, sentences, and phrases that snap us out of our own heads and ground us in reality. 

In January of this year, not long before I had to shutter the doors of my physical classroom, I was reading the above quote to my class. One of my students, who had been flicking paper-airplane darts into the ceiling for the prior 20 minutes suddenly stopped and looked at me. “Woah,” he shouted, without raising his hand. Several kids laughed, and I’m pretty sure I did as well. But I really hope that everyone in the room saw what was happening. That this student was experiencing, maybe for the first time, that feeling of being 12, or 32, or 90, and someone you’ve never met, who seems so insurmountably far away from you, saying something about a fictional character, in a fictional world, that so perfectly resonates with the very real present you find yourself in.

The Paper Dart

The new trend in classroom disruption for the 2019-2020 school year (besides coughing in a classmate’s face and whispering “Coronavirus” under your breath) was the paper dart. While a paper dart may look deceptively like its more innocuous cousin, the paper airplane, don’t be fooled. Paper airplanes are what we children of the 90s used to pass notes to one another in class. We threw them in the halls in hopes of “accidentally” hitting our crushes in the back of the head. I’ve allowed students in my own classroom to fold rough drafts of their essays into paper airplanes and send them around the room in search of anonymous feedback. The paper dart, however, is a modern feat of engineering with a singular, epic purpose.

After meticulously folding school-issue post-its into the sharpest possible point, the creator of the paper dart will wait for the perfect moment. When my back is turned and he or she has the undivided attention of a few other classmates, the dart is carefully balanced between two thumbs and flicked ferociously into the air. The moment of truth arrives when the dart either bounces off of the ceiling or, miraculously, hits its mark. If successful, the dart lodges its tip into the cork ceiling and thenceforth becomes a monument to be idolized by all for minutes to come. Until I start a slow clap, and knock it down with a yardstick. 

The paper dart trend was annoying at first. After all, I work at a public school, and those cork ceiling panels don’t just grow on trees. But I also found it kind of entertaining, and my lackluster admonishment seemed to serve as encouragement for the most enthusiastic participants.

A Paper Dart

As the weeks wore on, I watched kids’ eyes light up when they entered the room and saw an array of darts on the ceiling. Students were neglecting their nightly video games and Facetiming each other as they made Tupperware containers full of paper darts. One of my students, who had previously admitted to me that English had always been his least favorite subject, came to my class every day with a smile on his face, excited to talk “darting” technique.   

Last week, I went back to my classroom for the first time in two months to clean out my desk, organize student work, and prepare my classroom for the most uncertain of summer breaks. As I was wiping down the whiteboard, I looked up to see a small bunch of neon green paper darts still stuck to a ceiling panel. I laughed to myself, and then choked on the months worth of dust floating in the air.

While I hope that the students who left my class in March remember how to write a paragraph, and what a compound sentence is, and why blindness in literature is actually a gift, I also hope they also remember the absolute thrill of letting a paper dart loose in the air and waiting, breath held, to see where it hits.

Where to next?