A day in the life, Part 1

It was another day in Toddlerdom. Ladybug was seemingly bored and I was exasperated by my lack of creativity in finding things for us to do that were both fun and stimulating. So I plopped Ladybug in front of a Baby Einstein show while I scoured the Internet for ideas for toddler activities.

I found a web site with tons of suggestions but most were out of our developmental league with the exception of a pillow obstacle course. That one posed no problem considering I have – count ‘em – 10 decorative pillows for my king-sized bed. The pillows have been piled sky high on the dresser for the better part of 18 months and only find their way on to the bed on the rare occasion that I make it.

So we dragged the pillows to the living room and made a huge pile in the middle. We built a fort, a zoo cage, a staircase to the sofa. We fell on them and had a pillow fight. When Ladybug started rubbing her eyes – a telltale sign that she’s ready for a nap – I picked her up and carried her to her crib.

But she didn’t want to sleep. She babbled and played and laughed. I let her carry on while I picked up the mess we had made and swept the floor in preparation for our next activity – finger painting.

With nap time an unlikely occurrence anytime soon, I brought Ladybug out of her nursery, spread a shower curtain liner out on the floor, put one of my old tank tops over her and clothespinned the straps together behind her back to keep it on her shoulders. For the next hour, Ladybug squirted and smeared paint. She painted the inside of her nostrils blue when she went digging, and somehow got a green streak on her butt cheeks.

When we tired of that activity (actually, when I tired of it as she started wandering off the shower liner and began taking her paint-covered feet into the carpeted living room), it was clean-up time. Into the bath tub she went. That was followed by lunch and another round of cleanup.

With my allotment of creativity exhausted by the morning’s activities, I was beginning to panic. It was only 1 p.m. I still had at least another six hours to go until Ladybug’s bedtime ….

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