I Cant Hear You!

There are things that I work hard at to train my children to do. I dedicate a lot of time to teaching them not to hit each other, to share, to not throw their food, etc. When they were younger I worked with them on rolling over, crawling and walking. Now we are working daily on trying to learn more words. I would say the majority of my day is teaching and training my kids.

I have added a new task to the list of things I feel that they should be able to accomplish. The aforementioned activities and abilities are probably on every mom's list in order to raise a healthy, well mannered child. This new task is purely selfish for me. My children will learn to wear a set of headphones. No if's, and's or but's. I think for the next 2 weeks I may actually be spending more time on this skill instead of an important life skill, like increasing their vocabulary. Maybe I will teach them the word headphones in the process. Kill two birds with one stone there.

Why is this so important, you may be wondering. When we are up in NY I have a trip to NH planned. We are meeting a group of twins and their families there that I am on a message board with. I am so excited! So excited that I am even willing to drive the 5 hours to NH, by myself, with the girls. That is how dedicated I am to these ladies and their twins. Upon discussion of this trip with my father he said, "You know that is only a 40 minute flight in my plane." My father's plane is 4 seater that has a propeller that is pretty loud. When you are flying, you need to wear a headset. Are you seeing the importance of this now? 5 hours in the car driving by myself with two toddlers OR 40 minutes in a plane. If it kills me they will wear this headset! Like I said, a completely selfish reason.

Now, plane headsets are a little larger than your standard headphones, so we have been practicing with the Bose noise cancelling headsets. We have two sets that I plug into the portable DVD player and we all sit down and watch it. It is exactly what they will do when they get in the plane. To be honest with you, I am a little concerned about if Ruthie will tolerate the headset or not. She just looks so unhappy and uncomfortable in it.

OK, not so much. The child loves this thing. She just fluffs herself up some pillows and settles in for a nice DVD experience.

Don't work too hard there, Ruthie. Part of me thinks she is so mesmerized because she can finally see the DVD player screen for the first time since she has her glasses! Whatever works though!

Maddie actually does ok with the headphones also. The problem is she wants to walk around with the headset and it is plugged into the DVD player. You can see how this would be an issue. I think once we get in the confined area of the plane where she cant go anywhere, she will sit still and watch better. Of course we'll do a test run with them before heading up into the friendly skies!

Once they master this skill, not only can we fly in my dad's plane, but I will actually be able to listen to the radio in the van while they watch their DVD with headsets on! I have almost forgotten that there is a radio that plays things other than Elmo and Wiggles! The selfish possibilities are endless!