What-I-Carry-Wednesday: Emergency Toddler Entertainment Kit

I try to be good about bringing along the appropriate load of books and technology whenever we take our 19 month old somewhere he'll need to be entertained. But sometimes, I'm caught off guard and we end up in a holding pattern. Not to fear, in our little guy's diaper bag is his Emergency Toddler Entertainment Kit.

Here's what it looks like:

The contents:

• A Balloon - a sort of instant ball, not to mention fun interactive toy
• Crayons - for use with my notepad or on the furniture/walls, depending on who's making us wait ;-)
• Red Car - what toddler doesn't love cars?
• Stickers - I don't get it, our little one is absolutely smitten with stickers. He doesn't actually do anything with them, except, eventually put them in his mouth. But he's just fascinated to handle them and treats getting one as a treasure. It's one of easiest ways we can distract him to stop him from a tantrum. I like these ones in particular because they are small so they present a minimal choking hazard. And the different color choices means we can practice our colors when I give him one ("Do you want the red one or blue?" kind of thing)
• A key - mostly clean
• A colorful loyalty card - he's a little old for this hack, but it's small, so why not carry it?
• A travel toothbrush cap thingy - our little guys loves to open this up, cram things in here, and then close it. And repeat. It works especially well with restaurants and little bits of bread. I'm not sure why he loves it, but he does.

A few notes worth mentioning: (1) all of the above stuff is small, and therefore a choking hazard. So, when I take these toys out, we play with them together. (2) these items keep his attention now, but I know that's only temporary. I've replaced items as he's gotten less interested in them, and I expect I'll continue to do so.

My only regret is that I couldn't cram all this stuff into an Altoids Tin - then I could really have been cool.