Tag: play

Silicone ice molds

Ice Fishing, Bath-Style

The last week has been a torrent of tears at bathtime. My husband’s mostly…just kidding…kind of.

But seriously, for some reason, the kiddo just keeps FREAKING OUT when it’s time to splash around. And we need to do it–with the hotter Seattle days, sweat and sunscreen and general toddler messiness require daily hair washing. Or at least rinsing. Anyway, we took a nice long walk this weekend and stopped in an adorable gift shop to browse. I saw these fish ice cube trays and it hit me: I could make colored ice fish for the bath! Thunder struck, the heavens opened, and I was overjoyed at the prospect of a peaceful bath that night.

Silicone ice molds
Water, food coloring, and silicone molds are my gateway to bathtime happiness.

Continue reading “Ice Fishing, Bath-Style”

Finger painting for toddler

Finger Painting for Neat Freaks

We’ve got some gorgeous weather happening in Seattle right now, which means lots of fun outdoors. But sometimes, we gotta eat. Which means kiddo is restless and unoccupied for about 10 minutes while we get meals together. Enter this:

Finger painting for toddler
Occupy your toddler with minimal chaos and destruction!

I found this brilliance on Pinterest, and couldn’t wait to try it. I could only find one color of finger paint, so I added a few drops of blue food coloring for interest. I think it helped thin out the paint so it would squish and swirl more. Just add a few blobs of finger paint to a gallon-size freezer bag, squeeze out the air, seal, and tape all edges to a window. I say tape all the edges because as the kiddos get older, they like to peel, pull, and basically destroy everything they get their hands on! We did get a hole in ours, but patched with more packing tape and it was fine. We had fun stamping footprints, handprints, and even stamping shapes with some of our Melissa & Doug play dough tools.

Oh, and PS–make sure their nails are trimmed. We went back for a second round and Wolverine’d that bag up pretty good, thus making it messy (but not as messy as regular fingerpainting!)

Happy painting!