My husband is back at work after a year and a half! Crazy. I am really looking forward to having my own schedule, but the days are going to be long without a break. What are your daily schedules like? What kind of things do you do to keep your kids occupied all day? There is a twin play group on Mondays that we will go to, and I am going to sign the kids up for swimming, which will be twice a week (I'll leave one twin in the daycare at the pool while I take the other one swimming). There's always the mall and the book store too, although these will be harder to manage until they learn to stick with me when they're out of their stroller. It's really cold out right now, but it will be good when we can get out into the yard and/or the park too, although that will be another adventure to manage them there. My biggest challenge is to come up with activities that break up the day that hold their attention. I am trying to teach them to colour, but that's not going really well.. they just want to rip up the paper and it only keeps them occupied for about 5 minutes at a time. They are pretty good at playing on their own in their play area for long periods of time, but I feel like I need to get more involved with them to break up the day. Any suggestions?
Painting was a favorite for us at that age. They had a paint table that I let them use once we practiced in their high chairs. I would tape the paper to the tray and squeeze finger paint out for them. They loved it. I also used bathtime to break up the day. After they dropped the morning nap, it was a nice thing to do around 9/10am (usually after painting/markers/etc). We lived in FL at the time, so thankfully we didn't have to worry about the cold for too long. We still did a lot of trips to IKEA, the mall and the aquarium though!
I agree with Megan. I also let my two have a lot of unstructured playtime. They seem to prefer to play without my involvement and if they want me involved, that's when I go in there. We do some reading time, I work on a letter a day with them (now that they are in preschool, I try to follow the school's schedule), color, storytime, the mall, the library and when the weather is nicer-trips to the playground.
I find the morning is the long part of the day. Most days I feel like we need to leave the house for at least an hour or I go nuts! But I also don't want to spend a lot of money. -Search your community center or YMCA for cheap drop ins. We do a $2.50/kid drop in gym time once a week -Library time is offerred 2x week where I live and its free. -We do at least one playdate/week with another mom, sometimes twin mom, sometimes not. -Do you belong to a gym at all? If you do have one that has inexpensive/free daycare. You could work out and the kids could play. I think sometimes being anywhere different is fun for them. -Finger painting/playdough (messy but fun) -hide things the night before. Buy some cheap easter eggs. Place them all over in their playroom and have them search for them in the morning. It may or may not hold their attention for a bit to see who can collect the most. -Do you have a garage? Maybe set up some outdoor stuff in there. A basketball hoop, or a couple of hockey sticks, some cars to ride on. It's maybe warmer than being outside at this time of year. I see you live in Calgary. I am in B.C. and here we have Strongstart. Does your school system have that (might be a provincial thing). Its basically at local school and its like pre-school, ages 0-5yrs for free. Offered 7days/week. We do that a few mornings a week too.
