So every now and then I try to be the Pinterest mom. The cool mom. Sometimes I consider being the organic healthy mom…and then I nix that shit. So much work, so much money, and I survived chicken nuggets (and still enjoy them sometimes). I am broke, I am busy, and being a going-back-to-school mom, I don’t get the time I want with my adorable 3 year old son. In fact, my mother watches him at her house all week long, while I live an hour away in a camper to make the commute to school 30 minutes instead of a 2-hour-due-to-traffic fight to make class on time. So when I do get to spend time with my son, on weekends (make that every other weekend with new custody agreements), and school breaks, I like it to be as pleasant as possible. I don’t want to spend 16 hours sleeping, 20 hours yelling, and only 12 hours of my 48 having fun and enjoying time with my little turkey. We all know however, at three, constant activity is on the agenda, and sometimes mommy wants to eat out, or has social obligations, and turkey is just not down with being calmed down.
While browsing Pinterest I found a cool idea for busy bags. simple activities to entertain and keep the turkey contained to avoid the dirty looks of all others around me. While I could get into the whole “don’t pay attention to what others think, they should try having a kid, only I know what is best for my child, they can take a flying leap” mindset, I do have a decent case of anxiety and a pretty short fuse, so if we can keep the entertainment going, we keep the behavior on the positive scale, and mommy stays calm. To the busy bag!!!
I tried just a couple of the activities, and I won’t call them a Pinterest “fail” because turkey is happy, but boy do they make this stuff look way easier than it is (although I’m bad about directions…I may have seen the picture and went my own way about it).
Activity 1: Mess-free finger painting.
The idea is simple enough: put some paint in a zip lock, tape it down, and let the kid have at the mushy fun. I wanted to make it portable, obviously, and because I have a child that is too much like me; curious about how stuff works, and therefore destructive, I had to make sure he couldn’t just unzip the bag and get the paint out.
Everything I had:
white paper
zip lock bag
glue
material
From Dollar General:
washable paint (just in case)
clipboard
The Plan:
- paint in bag
2. white paper underneath to enhance contrast
3. attach to clipboard
4. superglue* the hell out of everything to keep it shut
5. add some material around the edges to ensure minimal “picking”
*I found E500 worked way better than superglue, especially with the material and ended up taping the edges of the bag to the back of the clipboard and just gluing the material on the back and top (to hide the zipper of the bag)
The Results:
my cutting of the material sucks, and it’s pretty ugly but turkey is having fun, it’s functional and portable
Activity 2: I-Spy Jar
The idea is a jar with a rice filler and some small trinkets to entertain and play a game with. I added plenty of E500 in the jar lid and a piece of material on top (I ended up finding a sugar shaker, so I wanted to make sure he didn’t try to pick the little flap open, even though I glued it)
I bought everything for this, but could have had rice, just hadn’t looked in the pantry and didn’t want to chance it.
Supplies (everything but the rice was $1):
Sugar shaker
rice
“ruble” toy (turkey is obsessed with paw patrol)
felt stickers (I left the backing on for the jar, but like the little shapes, I used owls and stars)
pom-poms
googley eyes
The plan:
put everything in the jar (fill about halfway with rice), glue lid shut, glue on material, and I ended up adding a sticker to the top and labeling it because why not?
The results:
I think I used too many items, and should have a bigger jar, the scale on this is key. It’s also a little messy, and I forgot to add in the googley eyes, but again, turkey is happy, so we’ll call it a mostly win.
in all I spent about $15 at the store, and have a couple activities for on the go. They fit in the diaper bag and hopefully will hold turkey’s attention long enough for mommy to keep her cool.
I found a couple of others I want to try to make so check back for the race car back pack, and the felt activity binder!
My Multiplicity 