Toddler Safety

Some days I am a energetic, creative, wonderful mommy. Most days, I am operating on 5 hours or less sleep with a husband who is out of town. For Elie's own safety, this week I was prepared with ideas of fun things to do. I thought I might share these for those of you who also have toddlers in danger of driving you crazy.

• Stuffed animal games: Make a train- Get a large sheet out and load it up with all the stuffed animals. Take them for a ride seeing how fast you can go without them all falling off. Sorting- Sort all animals by size, color, or animal type. Hide and seek- Kid waits in room while mama hides animal around house. Kid hunts them out. Birthday party- Pull out the hats and throw a birthday bash for all the animals. Basket ball- Put out a laundry basket and shoot hoops using the animals as balls.
• Crafts: Tear and glue- Grab a glue stick and tear up tissue paper to glue down to a sheet of paper. Toy prints- Use paint and a few toys or tp rolls. Dip toys in paint and use them to print on paper. Marble painting- Take a large pan with sides and put some paper in it. Drop a couple of colors of paint on paper. Toss in a marble and tip pan back and forth so the marble rolls around in paint. Also fun to do with a oatmeal container, just shake it up and see what happens! Stickers- Use the colored dot stickers and make different pictures using them.
• Old magazines: Theme-choose a theme (babies, dogs, food) and have your kid go through an old magazine and tear out pictures of these things. Story- Choose 5 pictures and use them to tell a story. Elie's stories are sooo funny this way. Color hunt- Go through and see how many things of a specific color you can find.
• Snacks: Sorting- Dump all the last bits of dry cereal into a bag, add raisins, mini chocolate chips, peanuts, marshmallows, etc and mix up. Give a kid a bowl of this mix and a egg carton. Have them sort out there snack while they eat it. Rainbow snack- find a food from each of the colors of the rainbow for a snack. Or just pick one and see how many things you can find.
• Hunts: Bigger/smaller- Give kid a golf ball and tell them to bring you some thing bigger than the ball. Then go find something smaller than the ball. Cup hunt-Give your kid an item (a cup or something) and tell them to go find 5 things that fit in the cup.

My child has survived this week. This really give a whole new meaning to child safety. The funny thing is, we both have a lot of fun doing these things, but I can't ever think of them on the spur of the moment when she is driving me batty. Hope you can use some of the ideas!