Toddlertivities

When I was preparing for our snowed in winter, that  never happened, I began researching fun toddler activities, a.k.a. toddlertivities, online. Mainly I wanted options to keep him entertained while we were inside, but during my search I ran into all sorts of fun indoor as well as outdoor activity ideas. Most of my ideas were found on pinterest, complete with a cute picture of someone's toddler sitting, calmly, entertained by whatever activity or craft the post was advertising. I would go get whatever supplies where neccessary and then plan to do it ASAP. Of course the end of that story is that it has been beautiful all winter and we spent most of it outside anyway, but I still have the supplies and ideas, and occasionally get motivated to try one.

My most recent, failed, attempt at setting up an "activity" was Friday afternoon. It was yet another beautiful day so I thought, why not have the art project set up outside, the best of both worlds, right? I got out his picnic table and set up my latest project. It really isn't a project so much as a "sensory activity," but I thought it would be fun and slightly less messy than other projects. I put a couple different colors of finger paint in a zip lock bag, taped it closed, then taped it to his picnic table. The idea was that he could "draw" in the different paints with his finger, mixing colors, and feeling the cool feeling of the paint through the bag. The kid in the picture on pinterest appeared to be Zane's age, so I thought it was an age appropriate activity. Guess what my child did as soon as I taped it on the table. Right, ripped it off the table and proceeded to try to figure out how to get into the bag and into the paint, to get it all over himself. He was successful, quite quickly, hence, the failure of my art project.

My next logical idea was bringing out some big sheets of paper and finger paints and actually letting him get nice and filthy making some art. I did this and all of a sudden my son who usually loves getting nice and dirty didn't like the feel of the paint on his hands and proceeded to wipe it on his clothes and run away. That's when I gave up on the structured toddlertivities and moved on to sitting back and observing the activities he found for himself.

The first toddlertivity he found and thoroughly enjoyed was a sea shell hunt in our back yard. That's right, there were randomly about half a dozen sea shells in our yard. I still have no idea how they got there, but they were spread out every where and we went around picking them up, then put them on his table to play with. He did enjoy playing with the paint that was in the ziplock from my previous failure with his sea shells. Picking them up, sorting them, putting them in the cup holder of his table, throwing them, and doing all sorts of random things with the shells kept him entertained for probably a good ten minutes. Keep in mind ten minutes is an eternity to a toddler. Now if I had gone to the trouble of actually hiding sea shells or even throwing them randomly about in the back yard he would have wanted nothing to do with them.

The second toddlertivity was the wheel on the wheel barrow. Zane has loved wheel barrow rides since mom introduced them to him months ago, but Friday he actually discovered how fun just the wheel itself could be. He sat and examined it for a long time, spinning it, and enjoying the black residue it left on his hands. He picked grasses and leaves off plants and threw them on the wheel while it turned, which seemed to be highly entertaining. This went on for quite a while and of course he eventually moved on to hitting it with a stick, which is also always fun.

The last source of entertainment for the day was far and away my favorite one. While playing with Zane's rug in his room Zane went and got Iggy so he could "drink" out of the pond on the rug. Iggy "drank" from the pond and "ate the hay" then Zane thought Iggy probably needed a diaper. He got a diaper out of the top drawer and went about trying to put it on Iggy. He couldn't quite figure out how to make the velcro closer contraption of the diaper work so he just showed me ALL the different places on Iggy that needed diaper protection. Of course between his hind legs was where I thought the diaper should go, Zane on the other hand was not so sure. He thought the highest priority was around his neck and belly, then he guessed we would tolerate a diaper going between both sets of legs as well. Here is the finished product which he carried around the house, proudly showing it off, the rest of the evening.

The moral of this story is no matter how imaginative an adult might think they are their imagination pales in comparison to that of a child. Also, grown ups, myself included, continually over think things. There is no need to "plan activities" for a toddler. This is proven over and over again. I often give children at work a calculator so they can pretend to talk on the phone when all other forms of entertainment have failed. Nurses without children usually tell me "I tried to explain to him that it was a calculator not a phone, but he didn't listen." And my response is always, well I told him it was a phone so it would keep him entertained. Or the fact that Zane, or any other toddler for that matter, can entertain themselves for quite some time with a pot and a big plastic spoon. So I will try to remember the old saying "Keep it simple stupid," and possibly stop googling toddler activity ideas. I am sure there will be a time when he will have the attention span for actual planned activities and crafts, but for now I will enjoy the simple pleasures of his self created toddlertivities.