Lucy and I tried some new activities last week to mix things up a little. She is changing and developing all the time, so a game or toy that didn't keep us amused a few months ago may well be a different story now.
The most fun we are having on quiet afternoons these days are puzzles. It wasn't until she was two that Lucy got really interested in doing any - previous to that she would do one piece and then move on to something else, or had more fun putting all the puzzle pieces in a bag and carrying them around! Nowadays she has mastered the wooden shape puzzles (where each piece has a hole to match up against) and also the 2-piece jigsaws that Aunty Jane gave her in the summer. She still has fun with them as we can talk about the pictures and shapes, but as a challenge is always good for ones brain, I got out some much larger puzzles to do last week.
We have been given a few floor puzzles as hand-me-downs which are pretty large and are definitely ripe for team work at this stage. One jigsaw shows the ABCs, so we got a system going where I would start her with the corner piece, and then show her a few of the first letters of the alphabet, and talk about the letters and pictures with her. She would pick out the piece that came next and try to fit it onto the last one which she did well either on her own or with some coaching like 'turn it around the other way' or 'it's upside down'. She got through to Z really well and it took us a good half hour...her attention span is so much better than it was! I have to say that on one day that we did this puzzle, it was truly the most stimulation that my brain got during that 24 hour period...so that tells you what state my brain is in!
Lucy had as much fun destroying the finished jigsaw puzzle as completing it!
We did some painting one afternoon too. It wasn't quite as successful as the puzzles in terms of length of attention span, but we did have fun for about 10 minutes (and I was kept busy for double that cleaning it all up afterwards!). I am arty and am keen to do crafts and art stuff with Lucy, but have definitely learnt that I need to wait for this kind of painting until she is a little older...or until it is summer again and she can paint outside and come and go from the table as she likes (minus the fear of mucky fingers on the walls and furniture!).
Picasso in training
Like her cousin harry, Lucy has found a soul mate in the dustpan and brush. Here she enjoyed cleaning up the crumbs from lunch for quite some time. It took her a while to work out how to hold the brush for maximum efficiency and it was fun to watch her. Of course with a clean-freak mother Lucy is likely to be on the cleaning rota in the house pretty soon if she keeps up this expertise :)
Sweeping up two crumbs at a time equals fun for a good 30 minutes :)
We have started building towns in our playroom. We have a farm, a garage and many cars and boxes for creating buildings. I also unearthed some lovely building blocks from Lucy's toy box the other day (I rotate toys to keep the selection fresh) so we made London Town inside her Thomas track.
Christine gave us a huge bag of toys and books the other day from her son Owen who is now a big boy and into Star Wars and castles rather than Pooh and preschool toys....all good for Lucy who now has lots of new stories to read, a Kipper DVD, puzzles and games. Some of the books came with character soft toys which is perfect for Lucy - she loves books so much and is excited about having the characters there with her while we read! So she now has a new appreciation for Winne the Pooh and has met Arthur and DW, a brother and sister duo.
Today Lucy has a runny nose and is feeling sorry for herself. I'm not sure if she is coming down with something or just teething. She still has her eye teeth and some molars to come through (she is a slow coach when it comes to getting her teeth) so it could be that. She is currently snuggling on the sofa watching Thomas and eating porridge with honey, quite happy with all the attention :)
By the way, the top photo is another game we started...Lucy playing a sleeping baby, all wrapped up in my blanket while I had to close the door and pretend I was putting her down for her nap. Ironically that was a no-nap day and when it came to time for a real nap, she refused to!
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