This week was hard. I think between the stresses of life and Little Buddy's lack of enthusiasm, I just felt like throwing in the towel. That's one reason this blog post is late this week. I'm just not sure I want to do this anymore. The problem seems to stem from the fact that although Little Buddy says he wants to do whatever activity I've planned for him that day, he drags his feet and wants me to "help" him (i.e. do the entire thing for him). My mentality from the start is that this should be fun. If it isn't fun, then it's not worth doing. There is a lot of planning that goes into each week, but if we get to the actual doing part and I have to nag him for the activity to happen, then I just want to give up. Nagging isn't fun, and these activities are just for fun.
I think that Little Buddy's enthusiasm for the activities may have waned because we've been doing something everyday. He's come to expect that Mommy is going to give him something to do, and it's not as exciting as it was when we began a number of months ago. After all, we'll be doing this again tomorrow! Maybe it's just too predictable or maybe talking about bears for two weeks was too much. Either way, we will be making some changes for future weeks.
Here is what we did do this week...
Monday, I tried to be prepared as much as possible. Here is what our kitchen table looks like when the boys wake up in the morning:
I try to put all the things we'll need for the day in the box. Buddy really seems to enjoy waking up and seeing what we'll be doing. Monday was our We're Going on a Bear Hunt day, so we started out by reading our book and looking for all the teddy bears I had hidden in plain sight all over the house.
After Button woke up, we pulled out our Valentine sensory bin. Of all things we did this week, this went over the best! It was definitely something new, and both boys loved playing with it for close to an hour a couple of days this week. Lots of messes were made, but nothing that a vacuum cleaner couldn't fix!
Button really loves reading right now, and Phil happened to capture some cute pictures of us that morning.
Here are a few pictures of other things we did that day.
Tuesday was fun at MOPs, then Little Buddy did the Dot-to-Dot with Daddy. We read our books, but Button's nap schedule got all messed up so we didn't do any baking. Instead we went to the park!
Wednesday was my roughest day. The buttons and bubbles craft was a total disaster from my perspective. First, Buddy did not want to paint the letters, but he didn't want me to put the craft away either. He just wanted to sit there, and ask for help. Now, this is something I know that he can do. He's done it before, and he's really enjoyed it too. Apparently, painting isn't very exciting anymore. He wanted me to pick up the paints and paint it for him. Finally, I declared that painting time was over, and I hoped that when we attempted the second half of the craft after the paint dried that he would be more into doing it. This was not so. I put glue dots all over the Bb's, and he started putting the buttons on. After getting about 6 buttons on, he was bored and wanted help again. He wanted me to put the buttons on for him. I did a couple for him, then encouraged him to put more buttons on. He said he couldn't and needed help. At this point, I started to feel like I was nagging him to do this, and figured that if he didn't want to do this then we could just stop. He didn't want to stop; he just wanted me to help (i.e. do it for) him. This was super frustrating to me, and finally I decided to declare again that the craft was over, which he was fine with.
This episode really made me rethink what I am doing here. We didn't really do anything on Thursday or Friday. I felt too burned out. I'm not ready to give up completely, but some changes will be coming.
I think that Little Buddy's enthusiasm for the activities may have waned because we've been doing something everyday. He's come to expect that Mommy is going to give him something to do, and it's not as exciting as it was when we began a number of months ago. After all, we'll be doing this again tomorrow! Maybe it's just too predictable or maybe talking about bears for two weeks was too much. Either way, we will be making some changes for future weeks.
Here is what we did do this week...
Monday, I tried to be prepared as much as possible. Here is what our kitchen table looks like when the boys wake up in the morning:
I try to put all the things we'll need for the day in the box. Buddy really seems to enjoy waking up and seeing what we'll be doing. Monday was our We're Going on a Bear Hunt day, so we started out by reading our book and looking for all the teddy bears I had hidden in plain sight all over the house.
After Button woke up, we pulled out our Valentine sensory bin. Of all things we did this week, this went over the best! It was definitely something new, and both boys loved playing with it for close to an hour a couple of days this week. Lots of messes were made, but nothing that a vacuum cleaner couldn't fix!
Button really loves reading right now, and Phil happened to capture some cute pictures of us that morning.
Here are a few pictures of other things we did that day.
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| Bear Mask |
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| Letter Bb Do-A-Dot |
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| Gummy Bear Graphing |
Wednesday was my roughest day. The buttons and bubbles craft was a total disaster from my perspective. First, Buddy did not want to paint the letters, but he didn't want me to put the craft away either. He just wanted to sit there, and ask for help. Now, this is something I know that he can do. He's done it before, and he's really enjoyed it too. Apparently, painting isn't very exciting anymore. He wanted me to pick up the paints and paint it for him. Finally, I declared that painting time was over, and I hoped that when we attempted the second half of the craft after the paint dried that he would be more into doing it. This was not so. I put glue dots all over the Bb's, and he started putting the buttons on. After getting about 6 buttons on, he was bored and wanted help again. He wanted me to put the buttons on for him. I did a couple for him, then encouraged him to put more buttons on. He said he couldn't and needed help. At this point, I started to feel like I was nagging him to do this, and figured that if he didn't want to do this then we could just stop. He didn't want to stop; he just wanted me to help (i.e. do it for) him. This was super frustrating to me, and finally I decided to declare again that the craft was over, which he was fine with.
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| Putting the buttons on |
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| An accidental "B" with train tracks |
This episode really made me rethink what I am doing here. We didn't really do anything on Thursday or Friday. I felt too burned out. I'm not ready to give up completely, but some changes will be coming.
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