Balloons and Peeves and CARES

I'm all over today.  Bear with me.

Balloons

These are seriously the cheapest fun ever for kids.  For older kids (like school age ones), regular blow-up balloons make great indoor volleyballs and I cannot tell you how many hours of indoor recess entertainment they've provided to my fourth-graders in the past.

For Baby Loquacious, who can't really play with the regular balloons yet, the helium-filled mylar balloon has proved to be a cheap, fun thrill.  She will hug and touch and try to gum at this thing, loving the crunchy sound that it makes and the smooth squishable texture of the floating ball.  Sure, I have to supervise her uber-closely since the balloon is tied to a ribbon that could potentially choke her, but with supervision this easily buys us 10 minutes of no-fussing time.

Pinterest Peeve
I love love love this app and have found many great ideas and recipes and "stuff" on there.  However, I recognize that these genius ideas and creative goodness comes not from me, but from someone else.  Therefore, credit is given where credit is due should I decide to blog or tweet or Instagram or go public about it (e.g. if I make a delicious dish and take pics, and the recipe was found via Pinterest).  I wish more people did that, instead of making it seem like it was their brilliance that came up with said idea in the first place.  If we were talking about the written word, it would be called plagiarism.  Since we're talking about ideas and recipes and that sort of thing, it's just called stealing, isn't it?

CARES

So, as you know, we're heading to Oahu for a bit next year.  I think I've decided to get Baby L her own seat, since the flight is 5 hours and she's not exactly a lightweight.  Fast forward a few more months, and she'll be even heavier and less fun to cuddle with for the duration of a flight.  Of course, she won't be small anymore, and we don't want to pack our car seat (we'll rent when we get there), so how do we keep little girl safe in her own seat during take-off and landing (and sometimes in between)?

I came across this seat harness/buckle thing called CARES when I googled yesterday.  It looks like it would work for her, and I'm willing to bet she will weigh the minimum 22 pounds by the time we fly out.  But is it comfy? Do kids aged 1-ish like the buckle? Do you have any experience with this contraption that you can share? I am thinking of dropping some coin on it but only if I know for sure it won't be a miserable uncomfy experience for my girl.

If you've come across other helpful tips for traveling with a one-year old on longer flights, please do share! Remember: my kid is tall and heavy (80th percentile plus on both counts) for her age, plus she hates to sleep and likes to move around.  Thoughts?