If you, like me, spend an inordinate amount of time with your children in the car, you know how difficult it can be to keep them entertained. To the rescue come tapes, CDs and portable DVD players. Top end cars now come with individual entertainment systems so the family that travels together…doesn’t actually have to enjoy the experience together.

But, I digress, what I really wanted to discuss was how to keep kids entertained on short hops around town, sans DVD player and without your car looking like the local Toys R Us. Since we try to reserve media for short periods on the weekends and international plane trips, we do not have a portable DVD player. The Hamster generally picks up a book as soon as he enters the car and starts to”read.” Or tells himself a story with his toy figures.

We do stock music and story CDs but, mostly we rely on, The Toy Box for entertainment. For a long time this was a cardboard box that slowly filled with books, Hot Wheels, stuffed animals, books, Playmobil figures, books and knick knacks collected along the way. As it started to look scruffy and friends looked askance, I replaced it with a new box, until I found a more stylish way to travel.

Our local Big Lots had these wonderful fabric covered baskets on sales, just the right size to fit on our back seat, beside the car seat. Now The Hamster has his toys and I have my style.

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