Kiddy Time/Mummy Moments: Day 3

Yay, today went really well!! (picture me jumping up and down in glee!) Last night I had decided that I needed to centre our activities more on As interests to get him involved and actually enjoy spending time together (duh, pretty freaking obvious huh?)

Well I found a website that prints off large letters that look like roads do this morning I printed off a large capital A and a large B. A was so freaking excited when he saw them printing off that he didn't want to finish his breakfast before playing with them.
He got out all his matchbox cars and drove them all over the 'roads' with me for 15 minutes. I could see that he was starting to get a little distracted so I quickly finished up and packed it away before it ended negatively. Now that I know he enjoys it I think I'll laminate the whole alphabet so they're a bit stronger and bring out a couple of new letters every few days.

I had also printed off a couple of coloring pages of trucks I had found through google images so I brought them out next. He sat at the dining table and was quite happily coloring in for another 15 minutes before I duvked out to have a shower.

When I returned my MIL had put A in the pram and he was pretending to be baby Z, sucking his thumb and crying lol. I went along with it and we had a lot of fun making sure Baby was being looked after. This probably lasted about 30 minutes.

I pulled out his box of Lego and we sat on the couch together building trucks and trailers for an hour. He has plenty of Duplo Lego but we also let him play with the regular Lego while being supervised because he really enjoys it and he's extremely clever when it comes to his technical skills. I love to see how hard he's concentrating on what he's building and his fine motor skills are amazing, I'm always very impressed with the things he makes.

We then engaged in some more imaginative play, he decided we were both dogs and we were crawling around on the ground barking and playing tug of war. This game lasted well over an hour! And then he wanted to play it again tonight before bed :)

I was going to take him to the park again this afternoon but by the time we both woke from a nap it was too late in the day and the weather had turned. Instead I pulled out his Duplo and we sorted all his Duplo sets. A put everything in piles depending on whether it was a farm specific item, or from the police set or firefighter set. I was reading something today that said sorting is an early form of mathematical learning which is great because A loves sorting things!
We continued having free play with the Duplo and we ended up playing together for the next 3 hours!!

Even though I had to engage in a lot of imaginative play with him - which I normally hate - I actually really enjoyed the day. I think I'm just happy to finally be engaging with A like I always felt I should. I feel a lot better about myself (hey maybe I'm not going to be a crap mum anymore!!) although I feel much more tired!!
Tomorrow we're going to be going out for the day while DH has the day off so I probably won't bother posting. I'm going to try and go to the library with A and pick up some more bedtime books.

Home Sweet Garage: Playroom

One thing I think is going to be extremely important in our new home is having a dedicated play area for the kids. I don't think its fair when children are made to grow up in a home that isn't appropriate for them; when they're not allowed to play anywhere outside of their room; not allowed to have any sign of them living there with you. Afterall, it's their home too.
So many areas of a house are designed specifically with the parents in mind: the main bedroom, office, kitchen, entertaining areas such as lounge and dining area, why should the children only get their bedroom - which they're then usually forced to keep in a condition that the parents desire. I want my children to be able to play while still spending time with the other members of their family rather than shutting themselves up in their room. I want to be able to do my work on the computer or make dinner while still being able to hear my kids laughing and playing; I want to be able to look over and see what has them giggling so hysterically.
We're going to portion off a corner of the garage as a play area for the kids, it's going to be approximately 3x2.5m. In this area I want to incorporate a table, a reading nook, open area of floor for playing and of course plenty of toy storage. I've found heaps of ideas that I'd love to include, such as designs for play tables, toy storage units, reading nooks, etc. You can find most of them on my Pinterest board, Playroom Ideas.

I think this toy storage solution is a terrific idea. Since DH is so handy, we're planning on building our own one out of timber and tubs bought from Bunnings (or the dollar store lol), it will be just like this one except we'll probably make it a fair bit longer (we're thinking about 2 metres long), and we're thinking of having it sitting on top of a bench that A can park his bigger trucks under. The bench will jut out a bit to make a step he can stand on to access the top toy tubs.

 

And I love this little table! It's narrow so doesn't take up a lot of space, but is still wide enough for little kids to draw, eat and do arts and crafts at. It's also long enough to accommodate three little ones at once: A & Z and a little friend :)

This reading loft idea is brilliant! I haven't told DH yet, lol, but I'm thinking we should have a reading loft above the craft table. It'll have to be a little higher than the one pictured above though, so we'll probably add a little rail to the edge so A doesn't fall off!

We'll also put little bookshelves like the ones above in the reading loft. The ones pictured above are simply made out of plastic rain guttering, isn't that a fantastic idea?!

Be sure to check out my Pinterest board to see where the original images come from.