I don’t like to admit this, but on some days, parenting can be so hard that there are a dozen or so other things that I wish I could be doing to lose my sanity. I could just join the circus and my fear of clowns would do me in…it would certainly be a whole lot quicker. Some days are awesome. Some days, like today, are so intense. They are an uphill battle from the moment we wake up. On days like these when Miss Mimi’s tears and tantrums turn into meltdowns for the both of us, I try to set her up with games that are a lot of fun and that avoid any sort of frustration. One of these games is throwing balls down the stairs, listening to them thump, thump, thumping and gauging how hard you need to throw a ball to make it roll all the way down. I’m sure a science teacher would explain gravity better than me, but Miss Mimi seemed to get it.
It took her quite some time to throw down that many balls and even though Miss Mimi promised me she would help pick them up, I was left to pack away this…
But that’s ok, I just wanted that happy-go-lucky kid who existed yesterday to return and banish this kid with the angry bad attitude.
The next attempt at having fun for longer than 10 minutes was going for a walk and collecting leaves and gum nuts in the sun. When we returned from our walk I taped up a piece of clear contact to the door and let Miss Mimi set about sticking her treasures on.
(When you’re finished you need to get some more contact and stick it sticky side down onto the work. I think the easiest way to do this is to put it on the floor and just laugh at yourself when all the bits get stuck to each other. While you wont be alone if you become really agitated with this bit, it certainly wont help to improve your child’s mood, trust me!)
As the day went on we played doctors office with an old computer keyboard and taped up Spot’s sore tail. We practiced hoola hooping and made invitations for all her toys to come to a ‘Show Party’ and I still wasn’t allowed to do anything away from her.
After giving up, I gave her some soy ice cream in a cone, put on Play School and I haven’t heard a peep from her in half an hour! Some days are not great, luckily most days are amazing.
Jump over to Childhood 101 and join in on ‘We play link up’
play.learn.love 
i love that contact idea Jade – can’t wait to go for a walk tomorrow to collect some treasures and try it out – thanks :o)
I like the ball idea, that would be very soothing as well as fun 🙂
Walks are great for helping improve the mood and the contact idea is brilliant.
Looks like you did pretty well for a difficult day – although I always find extra tidying up makes me cranky.
I like the idea of putting the contact on the window – we have done a collage on contact before but on the table, but I think the window would be easier.
Can’t take credit for the contact fun, I found that idea in a book years ago, when Miss Mimi was only a year old. It was very popular back then too.
Some days are just like that, and you have to go with the flow! The ball throwing was a good way to get rid of grumps, and the leaf collage is simply gorgeous hung up on the window. I’ll have to remember to get out the contact next time we have a leaf/flower collection happening… lovely pics!!
Thanks for sharing the contact idea! My pockets always end up full of treasures from the park, the kids would love to stick them!
I think we will have to buy some contact as Princess loves collecting leaves and it would give us something to do with them after 🙂
I know those days, and sometimes it is just easier to give in and put everything off until the next day to avoid the tantrums (from Princess and Mumma!).
Awesome leaf collecting contact paper idea. This would work great in a pre-school classroom too! The idea about the balls was so creative on your part. Thanks for the both activities. 🙂
My girls would love to throw our hundred plastic balls down some stairs – pity we don’t have any 😉
That contact idea is great. We’ve pasted things we collect while out walking but I never thought of this – will have to give it a try!
I saw the picture of all the colorful balls on childhood 101 and couldn’t resist popping over here. That would cheer anyone up! The funny thing is, our play activity this week stemmed from a very unhappy 2 year old. We did playdough that seems to be the thing that will calm him. But maybe ball throwing will work sometime too!
Right now my son is chucking balls down the stairs – he saw your photos. I have to admit the thump thump thump noise is actually nice, wait I hear rolling. The ball in on the hand rail. Its making him laugh. Fantastic lesson in gravity and consequences.
Clear contact is now on the shopping list!
Thanks 🙂
wow – you did so well for a difficult day! And that contact idea is fantastic….thankyou for passing it on. We actually have a paper bag full of leaves and gumnuts that Monkey One collected today…I’m sure he would just love to display his treasures in this way
Love the contact paper as a way of preserving your treasure hunt. Fantastic.
P.S. We all have days like this! Sending hugs and warm thoughts