When I was talking to Shari earlier in the week, she mentioned that she had given her 2 year old a pan with some oatmeal in it to drive his matchbox cars around in. So I told Olli to get all his tractors, animals and farm stuff over to the table, and I gave him a bowl of oatmeal. As I said, messy, but he didn't much budge from the table the whole 3 hours his parents were gone!
Then I just had to wash the table and give the floor a good sweeping- maybe five minutes work for 3 hours of mostly peace!
Tho he did NOT let me read my book- "ANNE! Don't look at the book! Play with ME!" :)
We did take a couple breaks, but he was careful to ensure he still got to play with the oatmeal when we were done, to read books we had gotten from the lib just for this visit, to type on the puter, and to look for new hockey songs on youtube.
This is O's current fave, and had to be shared with his dad when they got home.
Off to keep cleaning before the folks come home!
Anne
This reminds me of what my sister used to do; she would pour a whole bag of popcorn seeds on the floor and let her boys make roads through it, or they would scoop and dump it in piles. When they were done she would vacuum it all up, and claimed it was very cheap entertainment. Oatmeal might be even cheaper!
ReplyDeleteCheryl