On an average day, the one thing I spend the most time doing is figuring out ways to keep the kids occupied in a constructive manner. Because my toddlers have the attention span of a goldfish who suffered a severe head trauma. Multiple times. To various parts of the head. They spend about 3 minutes actually doing whatever it is I come up with and by the time I skip off to make my latte, there they are standing in front of me again.
“I’m bored.” “Mommy play with me.” “No, I’m not capable of feeding Elmo without adult supervision, you need to stand here and watch me while I feed him imaginary noodles. DON’T TOUCH MY ELMO you can only watch…ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION MOM???”
Yesterday, I started out with something easy – coloring. I printed out sheets of coloring pages with their favorite characters and gave them a box of crayons. And you know how long it takes for the kids to scribble lines on a piece of paper?
Exactly 2 minutes and 38 seconds, that’s how long.
It took me a longer to time to blue-tak them to the wall than it did for the kids to color them, just saying.
After we were done with our first activity, we moved on to something more interactive, like clay modeling. By interactive, I mean that I was the one made to do all the modeling while they yelled instructions at me. They obviously didn’t know that I’m possibly worse than they are at doing this. 7 minutes in, they were starting to fidget. “What are you making, mommy?” they asked impatiently.
“A mess, ok?”
If you must know, I was going for a snail, a boot and an elephant. They always make it look so easy in pictures but every single time I attempt to model clay, this is what I get.
Over the next hour, we played with trains, played with blocks, played with bigger blocks, played dress up, ate strawberries, ate yoghurt, ate gummies, played with trains again and just when I was about to cave and stick them in front of the telly, Kirsten discovered a sheet of bubble wrap.
I taught them how to squeeze the bubbles until they popped and they both thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world.
Sensing a breakthrough, I told them that they were supposed to pop every single bubble and whoever finished first would get a super special prize of…ANOTHER SHEET OF BUBBLE WRAP.
They sat for 40 minutes in silence and all I heard was the occasional *POP* *POP* *POP* of absolute bliss. They learnt fine motor skills, finger dexterity and mental focus while I learnt that sometimes, the best things in life are in fact, free.
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The things that amuse kids are pretty brainless :) I reckon my baby girl will be highly entertained by this new contraption since she gets tickled silly when my boy burps loudly! Pop, burp, fart … bring on the noise!
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Yeah funny noises seem to tickle them. Sometimes, when I run out of ideas, we sit down in a circle and take turns to make terrible noises (and funny faces). But it usually degenerates into a symphony of vomit sounds after a while..
My boy played with some bubble wraps recently and he enjoyed it so much! It’s true, some of the best ‘toys’ in the world comes absolutely free!
Ruth´s last post ..Don’t Sue Me for Having an Under-Aged Helper (and Why You Should Get Your Kids to Do Housework)
Kenan can pop the bubbles by himself already? Kirsten tried it a while back but her fingers didn’t have the strength to pop the bubbles so she flung it away. She only just figured out how to do it.
My boy can carry two plastic stools (not the low kind) stacked on top each other and walked some distance with them. So I think he’s quite a strong boy ;)
Ruth´s last post ..Don’t Sue Me for Having an Under-Aged Helper (and Why You Should Get Your Kids to Do Housework)
Haha.. this is why I like reading your blog. Because I don’t have to feel bad the way I do when I read blogs about mothers making beautiful craft items with their children. I need easy ideas like bubble wrap :)
LOL that deserves a hi-5 I guess. It’s certainly not for a lack of trying though, I sometimes follow all the steps in their craft tutorials and mine always turn out very different.
Bring them downstairs. You will be surprised how the cats, ants, snails, and even traffic-junction (counting buses and bicycles) can keep them entertained for hours :p
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That’s true, every kid loves being outdoors
Where can I stock up on the bubble wrap?
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Um buy some fragile items? I usually get them from packaging..I suppose you could buy them in bulk from stationery shops but then it wouldn’t be free
Finally you found something helpful~.
The true is, even a preschooler’s attention span is as short as a goldfish. How did we survived from our childhood when our parents were not with us most of the time?!
Haha i remember playing with my brother a lot. And watching a lot of TV.
Sorry, but I have say that I cracked up when I saw your snail, boot and elephant.
Which one is the elephant?? Hahaha! But good effort, nonetheless. I used to love playing with plasticine. So smelly but had endless hours of fun. But they’re ruined when 2 colors are merged, they always turn brown or an ugly shade of green. =(
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