Keeping both a toddler and a baby happy at the same time can be tricky.
A three-year-old can walk, use kiddy scissors, draw and paint without trying to eat the pens or the paper.
They understand complicated commands like “don’t you dare get that on the floor, the walls, or Daddy’s suit jacket. Do you hear me? And do you need a wee-wee? Well, go and try anyway and then come back and you can play with it.”
This does not work on a baby whose walking is still at the cruising-along-furniture stage, who has a homing instinct for potential danger, and whose exploration of the world happens mostly via their mouth.
In the chilly wet weather lately I’ve been scratching my head for a while for ways to keep both our boys busy and happy indoors.
Fun with paints, by two small boys. Mixed media: paper, finger paints, post it notes, felt tip pens, water, stickers, and probably drool.
They’ve both had more than their fair share of coughs, fevers, and more serious infections this winter. Turns out that starting nursery magnifies the ‘mummy’s little plague vector’ effect.
So, last weekend, rolled up the rug and sellotaped two big rolls of paper together and stuck them to the most washable part of our floor, making sure that there were no loose corners for the baby to pry up. I covered the chairs with sheets, and set up a little blow heater in one corner for warmth.
A selection of toddler paints in different colours went out on the lids of a lot of tupperware. A big bowl of water and some towels went right in front of the kitchen door – I wanted to be ready to intercept.
Finally, I put on my DIY painting clothes, stripped both boys down to pants / nappy, and let them loose. When they got bored of splashing in the paint, I fetched some stickers and pens and we kept going.
As the toddler’s favourite colour is red, the resulting work of art looks a little bit like the first chapter of an Agatha Christie novel. In a good way, I think.
It may be a little while before we do this again. We’ve only got one wall big enough to display art on this scale, and it’s taken now.
alfgifu 