White noise was helpful

The last few Saturday mornings we've risen early and headed off to support our eldest son as he runs cross-country races (we've also helped with recording results). It's been great, except that one of our boys has made the journey to (and sometimes fro) quite miserable for the rest of us.

The beautiful Tama Hills Yokota Air
Base recreation centre where the
international schools hold most of their
cross-country meets.

The issue is particularly sensitivity to noise. He's not been able to tolerate being in the car with us without making quite a scene about how noisy we are. This isn't a new thing, he's often sensitive to noise, particularly after school and especially when he's upset about something. But we've travelled many thousands of kilometres with him in recent years without this occasional excessive sensitivity being an issue.

While talking it over with a friend, she suggested headphones. I can't remember if she also suggested white noise, but that is certainly something I've picked up elsewhere. Therefore last week I worked hard to find some free downloadable white noise to put on our "ancient" iPods.

And we had the quietest trip you could imagine on Saturday. David and I even got to chat! Oh my, what a difference. We asked him later what he listened to and he said it was the "dryer" most of the time. I'm sure that would send me batty, but it enabled him to block out the rest of the noisy world and focus on reading his book. Awesome! It was a win all round.

Parenting is a challenge at all times, but when you get a win like this it is well worth celebrating.