Day in

More illnesses in the family have kept me quiet for a while, but I've still been pushing ahead with the activities, at Nugget's request. I'm still having very little luck finding things that keep her attention for very long, but she keeps asking for more. I'm taking that as an endorsement, and working even harder to try to hit her developmental sweet spot.

The pasta stringing was pretty easy for her, so I dug out a bead stringing set that I'd found at a resale store and tucked away. I used a divided appetizer tray (75 cents at the thrift store) to divide the beads up by shape.


It's definitely been trickier than the pasta, and she's gone back to it each day. Today I even pulled out the shoelaces for stringing, and that's a whole new level of difficulty. She worked on it a bit, then decided that the laces were her "clothes", draped them around her neck, and proceeded to wear them around most of the rest of the day. Unfortunately, one of the cats thought those strings dangling behind her were for playing, and the two of them ended up on not great terms...

Speaking of today, I decided to spend the day at the house with Nugget. It can be tricky, because my husband is an Emergency Department nurse who works weekend nights. That means he sleeps weekend days, and we have to try to be quiet in the house. We did the usual toddler activities -- the rice-filled sandbox, finger painting (still not a hit -- too messy for her), stickers, etc.

I decided to try a twist on something I'd seen on another blog -- contact paper collages. They taped clear contact paper, sticky side out, to a window. I only had white contact paper, so I taped it to the table. I got out my endless stash of felt scraps and cut them into smaller, random shapes.

Nugget got the idea right away and started sticking pieces down.


However, the concept got boring quickly. I stepped in with some pompoms to add texture -- no go. Then I made my own scene. It was pretty fun, I thought!


But what really got her attention was when I came back with a strip of toilet paper and encouraged her to tear it to bits and stick those on the contact paper. THAT was amusing to her. If only I'd had colored tissue paper....

A little teaser -- I've been working a lot of these evenings on a very Waldorf activity, a magnetic garden scene. It's not ready yet, but I'm close. Nugget saw some of the pieces laying on top of the bookcase as I was carrying her to the car for a grocery store run. "I want to do that!", she shouted. "I want to do THAT ACTIVITY!!!"

So, I'm crossing my fingers that the many hours I've put in will come back in how long she plays with it.