Ways to Tame my Wild Thing

My Emma Claire is a wild girl full of energy.
She is always bouncing all over the house and running from room to room.
She fills every inch of our house with laughter, screeches, and the pitter patter of her little feet.
I embrace her free spirit and encourage her love to play, but there are times when
I need her to be a little calmer, a little less crazy, and a little more focused on one particular thing
so I can get a couple of chores done around the house or cook dinner.
I include her in my chores as much as possible, but there are some things that just aren't
compatible with my Wild Thing.  Now that she is tall enough to reach the countertops I don't
like her to be in the kitchen while I'm cooking as much.  Knives and a hot stove
are easily within her reach now so I often set her up with some sort of activity that I know
will keep her entertained for an extended period of time.  This usually gives me
just enough time to complete whatever task I am trying to tackle.


Here are three things I've been using lately that Emma seems to really enjoy...

A bucket full of dry beans, spoons, scoops, and cups.
She loves scooping and pouring the beans from one cup to the next.
Another one of her favorite things to do with the beans is to bury one of her
little Minnie Mouse figures under the beans.  I always hear her saying
"Where'd Minnie go?" and then I hear the sound of the beans being moved around
followed by her little squeaky voice saying "There she is!"

And for some reason, she always ends up standing in the bucket.  

I think she likes the way it feels under her feet.

Another activity I have been using lately simply involves a colander and a bunch of pipe cleaners.
I give her everything and then let her loose with it.  She twists and folds the pipe cleaners,
sticks them in the colander, and pulls them out.  Sometimes she puts both ends of one pipe cleaner
into two different holes and sometimes she only puts one end in leaving the other one
sticking out any which direction.  Sometimes she sticks two different pipe cleaners into one hole.
Sometimes she pulls each pipe cleaner out one by one and sometimes she flips the bowl over
and shakes them all out.  Whatever she does she has a good time with it and that's all that matters. 

Another way I keep my wild girl occupied is with a couple of bowls, 

some spoons, and several ice cubes.  Emma absolutely loves this.

The first time I gave her these things she kept running over to me every few minutes

and saying "Brrrrr, cold."  It was so cute and I couldn't help but laugh at her

every single time.  She likes to shake the ice cubes around in the bowl

and hear the sound of them circling around it or clanking into each other.

She likes to pour the ice from one bowl to the other and she likes to try to scoop

the cubes up with a spoon, but that is a little more difficult for her.

Another thing she did the first time I set her up with this activity was bring 

the bowl over to me after she had been playing for awhile with a very confused look on her face.

She held the bowl out to me and said "water bowl Momma."  She was so perplexed

and I thought it was the cutest thing in the world.

Providing Emma with these kinds of activities 

gives her the opportunity to tinker with things and discover all the

different ways she can use them and play with them.  

I love seeing her engrossed in and learning from these type of activities