Sometimes I do know what I'm doing...

So one of the highlights for me in Tville, besides the joy of spending time with family and the warm, sunny weather, was the fact that I had a moment of brilliance in parenting. Given my background in preschool teaching and child development, I always kind of feel like I'm supposed to know the answer. This "pressure" to know it all can really get to me at times, because one of the things I've learned since being a parent is that there are way too many times that I really have no clue what to do. (she's crying in her crib - should we get her? ride it out?; she doesn't like X for dinner - do we offer something else? let her go hungry?; she wants to keep playing outside, but it's freezing and I have to make dinner - do I piss her off? or let her keep exploring?) But in Tville, I really did have a moment of brilliance.

Pop-pop had gone outside to wash the cars, and we thought the kids might like being outside and having a little water play. However, once we tried that, Jay did play with the watering can but he kept shaking it, splashing water everywhere, which made Hayden fall back in retreat. And neither one of them was particularly interested in getting sprayed with the hose. I remembered how we use to let Hayden play in a tupperware of water last summer and asked Lacey about a big bucket. As I headed inside to ask, I saw her coolers and the light bulb went off! "Can we fill up the coolers with water?" Indeed we could! And we found another large tub to fill as well. Thus we ended up with two large containers of water and, in another flash of brilliance, one left empty. As soon as I put the empty one next to the full containers, the kids immediately started transferring water into the empty container - I didn't even have to model it!

The result - at least a half hour of concentrated water play where the toddlers were super happy and the adults got to relax. It was perfect! Check out the pictures and video clip below for the set up. Thanks goes to grandma for providing the orange measuring cups! Perfect for scooping!





I just love how the video shows how busy they were. Jay especially kept up the water transfer for a very long time. Hayden got a bit bored and went looking for other things to put in the water. She liked tossing in a soccer ball and having it splash everyone.

After water play was over and the kids had been dried off and cleaned up, we continued to hang outside and learned that coolers can be fun, even without being filled with water, or beverages.


These pictures don't even quite capture how funny it was. First, they both tried to get into the blue cooler, but Hayden got mad because Jay was sitting on her legs. Then Jay tried the little cooler, but he just didn't fit. And when he'd try to sit down in it, he'd get stuck and then get frustrated and almost tip it over trying to get out. The song (adapted of course) "fat guy in a little cooler"comes to mind. :)

So anyway, they just really had a great time with the coolers. I can only claim the water play as my idea, the kids figured out the part about sitting in the coolers. And just for the record, I don't really have all that many great ideas. My idea to make mini-burgers for the kids failed - neither one ate any of the meat. Oh well. I guess that's what parenting is all about - trial and error - especially with the first one! At least we all have fun with the trying!