Summer’s here and that means planning more one-on-one time with each child and with my wife. Without the same kind of tight schedule, I can spread out for a day to take my five year old to a pint-sized theme park. My eight year old wants to go to more baseball games. And my 12 year old prefers to attend a rock concert or two. We have a couple of local ticket discounters that we signed up for and that really help make concerts, ball games, and plays cheaper. The best, in terms of quality entertainment and price, has been Goldstar.com, which discounts tickets in cities around the country, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and New York, among a bunch of other locales. What kinds of in-town activities are you all doing during the summer? What concerts or ball games have you gone or will you go to?
With Father’s Day coming around on June 20, I’ve gotten a chance to check out possible gift ideas. My personal wish list includes a new digital video camera and an iPad, but those aren’t fitting the family budget at the moment. In addition to my favorite presents — the one’s my children make for me (even if they draw pictures of me that make me look more bald than I am) – I appreciate gifts that make my life a bit easier.
Enter the Car Trunk Organizer and Cooler from RedEnvelope.com. As some of you may know from my columns, I am proud to drive a “Father Ship.” The ample trunk space is nice in my minivan, but it is a serious challenge to find anything amidst the piles of sports equipment, jackets, school papers, and more. So I wanted to try out this organizer, which promised to keep my car’s backside in order. The product is a rather sleek and classy looking thing, befitting a Jaguar more than an Odyssey, but it does look spiffy in black with the silver piping. Three easily washable main compartments flexibly hold a grocery bag in each one or any combination of the groceries, several baseball gloves, extra clothes, or even your laptop. The separate cooler has a sturdy handle to carry a small picnic or a passel of snacks. It can be slotted into one of the compartments or toted separately. Pockets on either side of the organizer can keep papers or paperbacks or sunscreen. I would’ve liked some kind of water bottle holders in case I only had a couple to stow in the organizer, but it can hold them upright if you prop other items against them in the cooler.
Fully expanded to its two-feet, the organizer won’t take much trunk space and influence the rest of your trunk to look neater. The whole thing can be velcroed down when you’re not using it, though you will likely want to keep it busy full-time. You can even take the whole organizer out with the reinforced handles to transfer it to another car or carry it out to the park if you’ve packed it with the day’s necessities.
Parents’ Choice does a wonderful job of reviewing family media of all kinds (and is a foundation for which I have written quite a bit, so I’m a little biased). For the summer traveling season, they’ve reviewed toys, music, videos, and games for ages infant on up. In “Portable Picks for Traveling With Kids,” some of the highlights among the 50 (!) reviews include the Car Valet, Road Trip Trivia, Cranium Silly Stories, and music from some of my favorite artists, including Gunnar Madsen. Read the article for a wide array of new and classic products to entertain your kids on the road, on the water, or in the air. Also, post your own suggestions for trip playthings by hitting the comments button below.
Some very good points are made about my comments on the situation in which the airline removed a family from a plane because their tantruming child would not buckle into a seat. Most of the feedback stresses that I put too much blame on the airline for their insensitivity and impatience (Dianne Williamson of the Worcester Telgram writes that an AirTran employee took the time to lecture the parents on how to discipline their child - http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/COLUMN01/701210459/1008/NEWS02?page1). However, I do want to clarify that, in the FOX segment, I did point out that the parents bear responsibility and should have taken an upper hand to get their child. My thoughts were — and are — that we do have to get tough with our kids when it comes to behavior that negatively affects themselves and others. Children will forgive our toughness, if administered firmly and without anger. I also made suggestions on how to prepare a child for a trip and keep them safely occupied during a flight.
In the AirTran case, much was in the control of the parents, but I do feel the airline acted too quickly and judgementally. The three-year-old was upset for this leg of the trip, despite showing superb behavior on the first leg and on the rescheduled flight home. Although the parents made mistakes on the “tantrum flight,” the airline could have handled it better. For more on the “AirTran-trum” situation, read Meredith O’Brien’s commentary at http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/bostonMommy/ and see further details on the story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16766215/.
The FOX News Live folks are likely changing my segment topic for tomorrow to cover the story about the family that was kicked off an AirTran Airways flight because their tantruming child was delaying the takeoff from Orlando, Florida (http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8MR41C02.html). The parents were having great difficulty getting their three-year-old to sit and buckle into her seat (which they paid for) and the flight crew decided to remove the passengers rather than hold up the effort to get the jet into the air. While the parents might have done more to coax their child into her seat (air travel with kids is painful enough to warrant bribing children to sit), the airline made a rash and insensitive move. Air travelers and airlines expect crying children, even if they don’t like it. More tolerance and assistance for the family would have gone a long way. Tune in tomorrow morning to FOX News Channel at 7:35 am PST/10:35 am EST to hear more.
