Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Doing Nothing

I love how to a 4 year old spending your day at home playing is considered "doing nothing."  I'm always amazed and thankful that we have a son who can be occupied within the confines of his own home and kept busy enough that we are not constantly having to go out on a daily basis in order to keep ours and his sanity!  Not that we don't like going out, as that's not what I'm trying to say, but it's nice to be able to hang out at home at least one day out of the week and have enough activity that Seb can still be exhausted by the end of the day and in bed and asleep by 7:30 p.m.!

Today, for example, was one of those days.  Like the majority of the week, it's been a pretty overcast and wet day.  We did manage a bike ride through the conservation area and continued to the playground for a bit on Wednesday and managed to get home just in time before the skies opened up,  but today as I'm still fighting a cold, and I'm doing my best to keep Seb from getting my cold, I figured we'd just stick around at home and play.

It wasn't until after lunch and Sebastian was on the floor putting together his second puzzle that it dawned on me how "doing nothing" to a 4 year old is  really quite extensive!  At that point I mentally went through what we have done today and made a mental note that we were actually quite busy doing the following:

-  Blocks.  Our morning started with Sebastian building a city in his bedroom
-  Painting.  Sebastian found a toilet paper roll and decided to use it as a telescope for his Pirate Ship.  I suggested he paint it, which he did.
- Having a tea party.  While the telescope was drying we went downstairs to the basement where I sat back and enjoyed my tea while Seb had his honey water.
-  Sebastian then constructed a ceiling for our basement
-  We then had a picnic on our living room floor of honey water and Easter chocolate.  Yum!
-  I think we then had tv time before lunch, which was my doing as I wanted to see his reaction to the Royal Wedding.  In Seb's words, "I like the music, but church is boring.  Can I watch the Magic School Bus?"  So that is what we did.
-  After lunch Sebastian played independently with his Iron Man and Buzz Lightyear toys.  During moments like this when Sebastian is "lost" in his imagination I have learned that intervening is not a wise choice.  It's nice to sit back and watch him as his imagination takes him to wonderful places.
-  We then constructed a few puzzles and played a board game before sitting at the kitchen table and doing some colouring.

Which of course, brings us to now.  It's 3 p.m. and Sebastian's two favourite shows are on: Diego followed by Wild Kratts.  He gets an hour of tv and when Wild Kratts are done we'll have another hour of "doing nothing" before dinner.  Oh how I can't wait to do nothing!!

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