winivy's Profile

Oops, I meant to type "my daughter" not "me daughter." I'm not a pirate.

Our favorite indoor activities are reading, singing, fingerplays (e.g. "This little piggy" etc), and coloring. But my daughter Winter also loves...

1) The indoor kiddie pool (a.k.a. the midday bath). I fill up the tub and let Winter splash to her heart's content. She also gets to play with all her bath toys of course. All the fun of bath time, minus the trauma of hair washing.

2) Office chair ride. I seat her in my office chair and spin her around -- a full circle in one direction, then a full circle in the opposite direction, and so on. This way she doesn't get dizzy.

3) Big ball bounce. I seat Winter on my exercise ball and bounce her around. Then I flip her onto her tummy and rock her back and forth.

4) Mommy bridge. I do a downward dog pose, but with a wide leg stance. Winter likes to crawl around underneath me. Sometimes the cat joins her and they chase each other around.

5) Sticky stuff. Sometimes I give Winter a cheap fridge magnet and she goes around trying to see where it can stick. I avoid this variation if she's tired though, because she gets frustrated if she can't get the magnet to stick to something. Sometimes I tape a piece of contact paper to the wall and cut out different shapes from construction paper so Winter can make a collage. She's really particular so she spends a lot of time arranging and rearranging the shapes, and luckily contact paper is sticky but not too sticky. Other times I put a bit of tape on the back of photos (usually photos of the cat) and Winter walks around sticking the photos to various objects.

6) Hide-n-seek. We take turns hiding behind the couch or whatever. Sometimes when she's playing by herself, she'll hide a toy, sign "I don't know" and then act all surprised when she finds it. Sometimes we walk around looking for the cat, who's usually sleeping in the linen closet.

7) Construction/demolition. We stack just about anything that's stackable to make tall towers, then we knock them over and start again.

8) Packing/unpacking. Winter likes to put things into containers, then take them out again, and so on. We do this activity with just about anything, but lately I've been doing it with Play-Doh. I make about a dozen little pyramids (so they don't roll if they fall off the table) and Winter packs/unpacks them one by one. It keeps her occupied after a meal while I clean up.

9) Playing doctor. We have a forehead thermometer that beeps and turns different colors depending on the temp. Winter loves it, so I take her temp, my temp, the cat's temp, her dolls' temp, etc. I also have some fun kiddie band-aids that we put on our make-believe boo-boo's.

10) Mini scavenger hunts. I ask Winter to bring me various things that fit a certain criteria ("Bring me something that goes woof!" etc).

11) Leaving the house. Just because you can't play outside doesn't mean you have to stay in your own home. We usually head to the library, which has a great children's room with lots of toys. Or we run errands (groceries, etc) and eat out. Or we go to someone else's house for a play date.

My daughter just turned 19 months, by the way. These are activities she's enjoyed for the past 3 months. I have so many more activities, but this comment is long enough!

jamjaree -- You've sleep trained your cats?! Amazing!

Carrie, I hope you find a solution soon. Have you tried putting some orange or lemon slices in your water spritzer? Most cats hate the smell of citrus, so maybe this will work for you. Even my cat, who is the anti-cat (she loves sticky tape, will scratch anything with mesh fabric, and plays fetch), hates the smell of citrus.

I met my best mom friend in the parking lot at Walgreen's!

bad economy my clutter = lots of charitable donations

i can't afford to give cash donations anymore but i know that my gently used (& sometimes never used) stuff can help a good cause. i donate about 4 to 5 boxes of clothing, small appliances, etc. to the vietnam vets of america (v.v.a.) every month.