What I've Learned
I have to admit that in the past 7 or so years I have had moments of desperation, moments when I needed to finish a phone conversation, clean up a broken glass, use the bathroom or just stare at the wall, when I let my children play with well-intentioned but misguided household items.
For example, when Sam was just over 1 year old I let him play with a large box of packing peanuts. He wasn't the type of kid who put everything in his mouth. I was in the same room with him. What could be the harm? But I soon realized things were getting out of hand when the peanuts started clinging to everything and the more you tried to pick them up the more electromagnetic they became. Reaching for them only caused them to scoot tauntingly across the floor. Forget about vacuuming. The air from the vacuum pushed them under every piece of furniture and into every corner. To this day when I open the closet in the den or reach under the credenza for a toy I find bits of packing peanuts and I swear they are giggling.
On another occasion I let Jake play in the refrigerator while I made dinner. Like Abby today, Jake used to like to reorganize the fridge and this particular time he found a green crate of cherry tomatoes very interesting. Again, what's the harm? They're squishy. They roll. Exactly. They're squishy because they are filled with red tomato juice. And they roll under furniture, under your feet, under the fridge.
The next time I needed to distract Jake in the kitchen I turned to a bit of advice I'd read in a parenting magazine. Turn over a colander and let your child push uncooked thin spaghetti noodles through the holes. Brilliant! Until I realized uncooked spaghetti is sharp and breaks easily and ka-pings its broken shards across the room. Especially when it is being jammed into a colander by a 2 year old. You can't sweep the bits up because they are just small enough to repeatedly sweep under the dustpan so you end up picking up every piece by hand. The next thing you know your child is screaming because you are taking away his uncooked noodles.
I'm sorry to say I haven't really wised up with Abby. She's intrigued by ice cubes so I once filled a bowl with cubes, sat her in the middle of the kitchen floor and went about my business. But not only could she not get a consistent, lasting hold on the cubes, they began to melt. After one good slip and fall we were done with the ice cubes.
Her latest obsession is cat food. She likes to pour it from bowl to bowl and serve it to the cats, often forcing their heads into the bowls. But in pouring from bowl to bowl a lot of cat food ends up on the floor. When we went through a bag of cat food in one day I realized I needed to try something else. Plus, if I had to pick a piece of cat food off my bare feet one more time I was going to lose it.
So, from cat food we tried black eyed peas. Abby's school has a water play table they fill with dried rice and beans when the kids have to play inside. This may be where she gets her pouring obsession. So, if it's good enough for day care, it's good enough for us. The last time we got groceries Bryon bought a bag of uncooked black eyed peas. This turned out to be a worse idea than the blipping cat food. Sure she loved to play with them. Pour. Measure. Scoop. Throw. Kick. Crunch. Sweep. Crunch. You get the idea.
Maybe one of these days I'll figure this thing out. Until then I'm going back to aspirin bottles and matches.
For example, when Sam was just over 1 year old I let him play with a large box of packing peanuts. He wasn't the type of kid who put everything in his mouth. I was in the same room with him. What could be the harm? But I soon realized things were getting out of hand when the peanuts started clinging to everything and the more you tried to pick them up the more electromagnetic they became. Reaching for them only caused them to scoot tauntingly across the floor. Forget about vacuuming. The air from the vacuum pushed them under every piece of furniture and into every corner. To this day when I open the closet in the den or reach under the credenza for a toy I find bits of packing peanuts and I swear they are giggling.
On another occasion I let Jake play in the refrigerator while I made dinner. Like Abby today, Jake used to like to reorganize the fridge and this particular time he found a green crate of cherry tomatoes very interesting. Again, what's the harm? They're squishy. They roll. Exactly. They're squishy because they are filled with red tomato juice. And they roll under furniture, under your feet, under the fridge.
The next time I needed to distract Jake in the kitchen I turned to a bit of advice I'd read in a parenting magazine. Turn over a colander and let your child push uncooked thin spaghetti noodles through the holes. Brilliant! Until I realized uncooked spaghetti is sharp and breaks easily and ka-pings its broken shards across the room. Especially when it is being jammed into a colander by a 2 year old. You can't sweep the bits up because they are just small enough to repeatedly sweep under the dustpan so you end up picking up every piece by hand. The next thing you know your child is screaming because you are taking away his uncooked noodles.
I'm sorry to say I haven't really wised up with Abby. She's intrigued by ice cubes so I once filled a bowl with cubes, sat her in the middle of the kitchen floor and went about my business. But not only could she not get a consistent, lasting hold on the cubes, they began to melt. After one good slip and fall we were done with the ice cubes.
Her latest obsession is cat food. She likes to pour it from bowl to bowl and serve it to the cats, often forcing their heads into the bowls. But in pouring from bowl to bowl a lot of cat food ends up on the floor. When we went through a bag of cat food in one day I realized I needed to try something else. Plus, if I had to pick a piece of cat food off my bare feet one more time I was going to lose it.
So, from cat food we tried black eyed peas. Abby's school has a water play table they fill with dried rice and beans when the kids have to play inside. This may be where she gets her pouring obsession. So, if it's good enough for day care, it's good enough for us. The last time we got groceries Bryon bought a bag of uncooked black eyed peas. This turned out to be a worse idea than the blipping cat food. Sure she loved to play with them. Pour. Measure. Scoop. Throw. Kick. Crunch. Sweep. Crunch. You get the idea.
Maybe one of these days I'll figure this thing out. Until then I'm going back to aspirin bottles and matches.
posted by Romine Family at 11:03 AM
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