Traveling with this high-energy nine year old is not normally my favorite thing to do. She has a short fuse, isn’t shy about making everyone around her know when she’s unhappy, and gets bored easily. People actually requested parachutes on a flight I took with her a while back. This trip did not begin well and I feared it would be even worse than that. It started with a three-hour wait in the airport, a missed connection, and an overnight at a bad airport hotel. Yet here she is after all that and three hours into a five-hour flight. Notice the look of quiet absorption on her face? And her mother (that’s me) has just enjoyed reading a novel and watching an instructional video on her laptop without interruption. What happened?
She is listening to music. That’s all.
About a month ago, I sat down in front of Napster to Go with her and let her choose some music to listen to on my Sansa View
. And that sparked what is apparently a deep interest in music. She quickly learned all the artists’ names (since they scroll on the screen while you listen), determined her favorites, and started talking about her influences. She has been taking piano lessons for about a year but now that she is a consumer of music, she shows an interest, practices, and considers herself a musician. Who knew?
On this trip, she isn’t listening to my borrowed Sansa View though. She has very own Sansa Fuze tucked into her pocket. Kaity at Sandisk sent me one to review and Ava fell instantly in love with its tiny form and sleek silver color. Since Napster to Go allows me to load unlimited music on three devices for a monthly fee, her Fuze is now personalized with her music—none of mine—and a couple of audio books from Audible.com. And the result, as you see, is many hours of calm for both mother and daughter. To all you people who jumped off our last flight: “Sorry! We figured it out.”
The Fuze is a cute and inexpensive way to get a kid started on music. (Or maybe you want something small to work out with?) They start at $79.99 for the 2GB version and come in blue, red, pink, black or silver. Whatever size you get though is expandable because these players all accept a microSDHC card which is the tiniest memory card I’ve ever seen. (I will post a picture of one of these very soon because they are amazing.) So despite the low cost to entry, the Fuze and View don’t limit how much you can store on them. If you run out of space, get another memory card.
You readers may have noticed that I have caught the giveaway bug here at GeekGirlfriends. The bag giveaway was way fun and I want more of that. So stay tuned here. Hint. Hint. I have a very cool giveaway related to this post coming up very soon. Is that a big enough hint? Am I being too obvious?
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
A rare moment of quietude from la princepessa. I think having the soda cann to her lips probably helped,
Sent from a t moble sidekick.
Yes! You can transfer the music on the SDHC card to other devices–cell phones included–just by popping them out of one device and into the other. I’m going to go a post on these nifty little cards very soon. As soon as I can find my desk for all the mail that piled up on our trip.
Can you transfer the micro SDHC cards from the players to cell phones and still have them play the music? I love reading your posts! :o) Thanks!!!
I had not heard of these yet. I’ve been considering getting a Nano for my 8 year old but these seems like it might be better option.
THANKS
I WAS on that last flight and I have been hassling with the airlines for MONTHS for a refund. I remember thinking how can such a cute little girl be such a MONSTER!? Ha ha just kidding, thanks for the tip and I love all your give aways!
Hi
Just like you I was amased about the small size of the microSDHC cards. You know they are even washingmachine proof??? My son left on of them with Nintendo games on it in his jacket.
Gabrie