You have my sympathy--and my empathy. As a toddler, my son furiously protested being in his car seat, so I had to entertain him, unseen, from a distance and drive carefully at the same time. Talk about stress! The best options for amusing a car-bound toddler meet the criteria ofrequire novelty, independence, and safety, since --you can't constantly keep handing him things, or play patty cake, nor constantly can you watch him constantly as you're driving. Some ideas:
1) Sing songs or tell stories. If you're not up to for 15 rounds of "Old MacDonald" or spinning elaborate tales of bunnies and frogs in the forest, rent or buy CDs. Classic stories like "Guess How Much I Love You" and "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed", will keep you both cheerful, as will the catchy tunes on "Toddlers Sing" by Music for Little People and Dan Zanes' "Rocket Ship Beach." Check your library, eBay, or www.freecycle.org for free or cheap CDs. Or just turn on the radio to a Top-40 station--your child is too young to understand the lyrics, thankfully, and the beat will hold his attention, especially if you sing along--loudly.
2) Offer a satisfying, healthy snack that takes awhile to get through, whether it's Cheerios or quartered grapes in a cool spherical Boon Snack Ball container, or a low-fat, -yogurt-fruit smoothie served in a toddler-safe straw cup like Gerber's Cool Twisties Straw Cup.
3) Reserve a stash of fresh books just for car time, but familiarize yourself with them before you hand them to him. If you know what book your toddler is paging through, ask him questions about what he's looking at, or have him find the page with, say, the parrot on a pirate's shoulder. Sturdy pop-up or lift-the-flap books like "Peek-a -Who?" by Nina Laden, the Maisy books, "Tails," and other books by Matthew Van Fleet will happily occupy a toddler.
4) And of course, toys, toys, toys... Again, try to keep them fresh by rotating them in and out of the car. Avoid anything that's hard (likely to become a projectile), or, depending on your stamina, horribly noisy. Some good, no-mess options: travel drawing boards, stickers and magnetic puzzles like those by Melissa & Doug.
5) If, despite your precautions, you are stuck in a car with a bored, irritable toddler, hand over these desperation options: a pocket pack of tissues; a sheet of paper you've drawn a funny face on and then folded up into the tiniest square for your kid to unfold; your house keys; the vinyl folder in the glove compartment that holds the car registration, insurance card, and car manual; an eyeglasses case. Finally, when your toddler can't keep it together in the car, it might help ease your frustration to look at things from his point of view: He's just learned how to walk on his own and you want to strap him down? Cue another round of "Old MacDonald."
Andrea Messina
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It's probably not the best idea to give your children food to eat in the car... particularly an infant or young toddler. What would happen if your child began to choke while you were driving? How would you have time to pull over, unbuckle yourself, jump out and unbuckle your child in time to stop the choking. This is a risk I would resist taking.