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.