Collapsible car ramp
We are gearing up for our next cross-country trip, and are getting items together to keep the kids happy on the plane ride.
My one year old, can be difficult to keep entertained. He has 2 big brothers, and tends to be loud and yell because of them, and has recently started to throw things when he is upset. Oh.no! I have never had an issue with my kids on a plane. We go cross-country often, and with all of my kids, as we are getting off the plane, we get LOTS of “Your kids were so good!” We ALWAYS get lots and lots of compliments, because we try to be very good and prepared to keep our kids happy. I try my hardest to keep them from being loud and annoying.
No parent wants to be the parent with the crying child. TRUST ME, it is worse for the parents than all those around. They are horrified their child is acting that way, and it is fun for no one. I try to help out other parents and offer some of the toys/books from our bags, because other people’s toys and books are much better than your own! Anything to help another parent out!!
Well, I am getting a little nervous about our long plane trip. I was thinking about what my son likes the most and keeps him occupied, besides TV or movies (not that I am against that, I am FOR that on plane trips – anything to keep them happy!! We will have tablets loaded with movies and tv shows, it just won’t occupy him for 5+ hours!). He LOVES Hot Wheel cars. He always has 2-3 cars in his hands at all times.
But how can we take cars on the plane, not have them roll away, since he loves to race them? Hmmmm… I am pretty sure there is no such thing as a collapsible car ramp.
In comes my engineer Husband. I put him to work to figure out how to build a collapsible car ramp for our 1-year-old to play with on the plane. It needed to fold flat to fit into our luggage and not take up any valuable space! It needed a ramp, a rim so that the cars would not roll away and would stay contained, and a place where he could take the cars in and out of, because one year olds love to take things in and out!
He set to work last night. He used 2 cereal boxes, something we have lots of around here! I can’t really give directions for re-creating this, because he made it up as he went along (how he creates everything) and I don’t think he could re-create it exactly anyway….
Just look at the pictures and re-create for yourself. I am a visual person and like to re-create from pictures 🙂
It is held together with Paper clips… You can see in one of the pictures I added extra to the side, to take with on our trip in case any got lost 🙂
To make it lay flat, we simply remove the paper clips, lift the ramp up (which lays flat and is a separate piece). It either folds up and is held together with a paper clip (like the edges on the bottom, that keeps the cars contained and from rolling away, fold up and are secured with a paper clip. Can then remove paper clips and it lays flat), or it is attached with packing tape and will lay flat.
It turned out AWESOME and I was so excited to show it to our one year old, I showed him as soon as he woke up this morning! He LOVED it and was really excited about it! Now to go lay it down and slide it into our carry-on bag. Here’s to hoping adding this Collapsible car ramp to our bag of tricks will keep him happy for a little while on our long plane trip!
Collapsible car ramp
Collapsible Car Ramp – Door under the ramp to put cars in and out of. Great way to keep little hands busy and play a game of “Where’d it go?”
He LOVES it – bed head and all!!
See Extra Paper Clips for the trip. Just added them to the side to keep JUST IN CASE!
