5 Ways to Make Car Errands Fun Adventures For Little Kids

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My kids (especially Essley, my 4.5-year-old daughter) are officially in that stage of a child's life where car rides inevitably become filled with the repetitive "are we there yet?" inquiries. Over and over and over again. And again. I have a lot of errands to run throughout the day for work and life, and after enough occasions where Essley made it very clear that the time spent in the car was unbearably boring for her, I decided (for both of our sakes, if we're being honest here), we were going to have to make these errands into adventures. Much to my surprise, it worked. So I thought I would share with you a few ways we've transformed our everyday outings from mundane to fun.

1. Play I Spy. Maybe this doesn't sound very original, but we take things up a notch and make regular old I Spy more adventurous. We'll choose a theme (usually having something to do with magical lands or unicorns or something else metaphorically sparkly if Essley has any say), and we have to find things that fit into that category. For example, I might see a water tower and say "I spy with my little eye an enchanted castle." (I'm not going to lie guys, it's kind of fun for me too.)

2. Go on a treasure hunt. Essley is huge into the idea of hunting for treasures, so for this game, she'll bring a "treasure map" (last time this was a brochure from the doctor's office) and pretend that the car ride is a journey to the treasure. She'll pretend she's telling me which way to steer the boat and what we see along the way, and once at our destination, we'll find the treasure (usually something the kids like on our grocery list).

3. Turn the car seat in a magical carriage. Essley was beyond stoked when we recently got her the (new!) Maxi-Cosi Magellan 5-in-1 Convertible Car Seat and was downright thrilled when she learned that she would be able to use it in Booster Mode "just like a big kid." She declared it her magical carriage, and thus began the best boring car ride game yet. She insists on wearing a tiara and bringing random trinkets (which often include a pinwheel doubling as a magic wand), gets buckled into the seat, and the adventure begins. She usually narrates the entire journey, which is admittedly pretty freaking adorable.

We have become huge fans of the Magellan 5-in-1 Convertible Car Seat (and plan to switch Emmett's to this as well), thanks to its innovative design that accommodates children from birth to 10 years old (5 to 120 pounds!), with five modes of use: Baby Rear-Facing, Toddler Rear-Facing, Toddler Forward-Facing, Child Forward-Facing and Belt Positioning Booster. We knew we'd be upgrading Essley's car seat soon because she was at the weight and height to transition to a booster, but for our own preference in terms of safety, we wanted one that was still a car seat as well. The Maxi-Cosi Magellan provides this for us. Essley also told us that it is "as smooth and comfortable as silky hot chocolate" (sounds good to me!). And we love the attractive design, and the fact that fabrics are machine washable. You can also remove the cup holders and put them in the dishwasher. Woot!

4. Turn the car seat into a spaceship. Same idea as number 3 above. Both my kids love to pretend they're astronauts (or space aliens) and their car seats are rocket ships launching into space. We especially love this game when it's night time and the stars are out. Essley likes to pretend the cup holders on her Magellan 5-in-1 Convertible Car Seat are her controls. It's kind of awesome.

5. Pretend you're traveling the world. Yes, my kids are 2.5 and 4.5 and don't really seem to think our flights to California or the Dominican (from Chicago) are much different than our hour-long drives to the lake in terms of excitement - but they do seem to find it much more interesting to pretend we're on an adventure to explore the world than on a mission to go buy more apples. Usually Essley decides where we're going. Last week, it was Australia - every street sign we passed was a kangaroo, and there were koalas hanging out in all the trees. The best.

For those of you with little ones who ask the "are we there yet" questions even on the shortest of errands, I hope these ideas prove useful for you! And if you're in the market for a new car seat, I can't recommend the Maxi-Cosi Magellan 5-in-1 Convertible Car Seat enough, which retails for $349.99. I wish they'd made it when my kids were newborns so we could have had them from the very start! You can find it at Amazon, Target.com, Buy Buy Baby, Nordstrom.com, and Albee Baby.

If you have any other tips or ideas for making errands adventures, I'd love to hear them!

Thank you for supporting the brands that help make Bubby and Bean possible. I was selected for this opportunity as a member of CLEVER and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.


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