An Activity a Day Keeps the Mommy Sane

Keeping an 18month old entertained is a tricky business. They're not old enough to completely entertain themselves and yet not young enough to be entertained by a bouncy ball or reptitive toy (both of which my 6 month old loves). So, if you ignore them they'll simply wail down the house till you give in and hand them your phone, equipped with youtube, and watch helplessly as they make phone calls to random strangers.

Not to mention the fact, they're at the in-between age where they can gobble up oodles of learning and yet are too little to be shipped off to a preschool for several hours. 

Faced with this reality, day after day, I was forced to think of things to do. And today, I realized that we mothers need a repertoire of activities to refer to on those days when we simply cant think of anything! So here we go: I am going to  share some of the things I found quite useful when dealing with my 18 month old. On top of that, Manahil and I are going to do an activity a day, to keep her busy during the daytime, and I'll share the details of that with you as well.

Generally to keep her busy in the mornings I encourage her to help me clean, feed her baby (random stuffed toy) while I feed Rayyan cerelac, give one of her stuffed toys a long (and I mean really long. Long enough to let me type this blogpost) bath with a nearly empty baby shampoo bottle, do some painting or coloring... And the list goes on. In the evenings I take her to the park or swimming to up her activity. But the hardest part is that chunk of the afternoon when it's too hot to go outside, and being inside the whole morning has pushed her to the limit. Hence, an activity a day. 

Today, manahil and I constructed a den. Constructing a den is simple: merely take two chairs facing outwards and drape a large blanky over them, ta-da! Then we filled it with some of her toys and books and wow, was she excited. Everytime I had to speak with her I would have to knock on the chair and then she would regally give me permission to enter. To be honest, I had quite a bit of fun too. We even ended up playing some hide and seek with the den! 

Stay tuned for the next activity!