Toddler activity - when your little one has other ideas...

Today's episode starts with my beloved flower wellies.

My sister bought these for me about 15 years ago. They have done me proud, but couldn't withstand the amount of puddle jumping I've done with my toddler. They were leaking and I needed to move on.

I didn't want to just throw them away, but what could I do with the them? The only recycle idea I found was to make them into a planter.

Little E likes digging, so I thought planting some flowers would be good.

So, I made this! Little E picked the flowers out from our local shop.

I got most of my inspiration from this blog... Baby Routes. She is a great blogger. Walking and nature with little ones.

http://babyroutes.co.uk/how-to-make-flower-pots-from-old-wellies/

From her video...her kids got stuck in. Aww...sweet.

Little E did not...Sigh.

At first I was disappointed. I then realised the reason he wasn't helping, was because he was too busy filling a bucket of water up with soil. He spent ages doing that. He then wanted to tip it all out. He discovered that he had created mud! I can only imagine this is how Man must have felt when he discovered fire.

I think he played with this mud for the next hour and we had a whole "mud kitchen" thing going on.

Now...this was hard for me. I am not a particularly "cool" mum. Big E is also not fond of mess and mud. When Little E started painting the gate with mud it took all my will power not to shout "Not on the gate! I'll have to clean that up! Your dad will be upset too!" 

Then I thought...it's mud! The rain will wash that away.

Thankfully it was all a lot of fun. An added bonus...Little E didn't throw any at me.

If being a mum has taught me nothing else, it has helped me to be more flexible. Little E knows his own mind and really doesn't want to be told what to do. I have to learn to create a space for him to do his own thing. I must be mindful that these projects are what I WANT. Hopefully he can then use them to do what he wants.

It's easy to get obsessed with picture perfect parent blogs with happy children joining in with brilliant activities. We probably all need to learn to go with the flow (and mud!) a bit more.

When messy play gets messy!

Oh dear...

Not everything I try goes well and this didn't go well at all...

I thought I would share this, as you can end up looking at lots of blogs with happy, smiling, well behaved kids and think, "What am I doing wrong?" You aren't doing anything wrong, people are only sharing the stuff that went well!

We go to a lovely toddler group once a week that always has a messy play station. One week, it was cold, cooked spaghetti. Little E loved it and I squirrelled it away as an idea that I could do easily at home. How messy can spaghetti get?

Really messy...

My rookie mistake? Forgetting Little E likes throwing. He threw it everywhere! I think we'll be finding spaghetti down the back of radiators for a week. When he started throwing it at me, I'd had enough and ended the game.

Picking cold, sticky spaghetti off the floor takes a long time.

This is why I have always been concerned about messy play. I have limited energy and I really didn't want to clean that all up on top of everything else I have to do. Worst of all, Little E didn't want to help the clean up and had a tantrum.

Sigh...Felt like a failure...

Then I reflected...

Until then, we'd had a really nice time.

He'd love it. Chopping, cutting, serving me bowls of spaghetti, sticking his hands and face in it! He cut it up with scissors and I showed him how to use scissors with one hand. It was great.

Yes, he had a tantrum, but I stood my ground and in the end, he came back and helped me tidy up. Yes! 1 point to mummy!

So...will I do spaghetti again? Maybe outside for the time being or until he is old enough to stop throwing things!

I'd definitely recommend having a go if you think you can contain the mess...or have a dog to eat it all up off the floor and walls and chairs and ceiling....