Wednesday, December 7, 2011

100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 58: Snow Spray

I took a small hiatus from my posts on coming up with interesting activities to entertain Oliver in my "100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler" series. Unfortunately, it's difficult for me to give Oliver the same amount of undivided attention with our new, beautiful baby here. I'm hoping to slowly get back into these posts because Oliver and I have fun with them.

Today, I decided to take an empty spray bottle, clean it out, and refill it with water and food coloring. My plan was for Oliver and me to go outside and decorate the snow. First, I needed to choose a color. Red seemed too gory. I worried yellow would look like pee. I thought green might not be very exciting to Oliver, since he's used to seeing green in the grass and trees. So, I selected blue.

Here is our spray bottle of fun:

Oliver and I put on our coats and hats and went out on the back porch. Here's my cute little guy:

Then, I started spraying!


I sprayed and excitedly shouted to Oliver to do the same. He gave a few sprays but wasn't as enthralled as I'd envisioned. I decided it was because the blue water didn't contrast enough with the snow. I hollered inside to Andrew to bring us some red dye. I thought making purple would help pique Oliver's interest. It didn't. Oliver gave a few more half-hearted sprays before getting upset that his hands were turning purple from the dye. He stuck his hands in the snow to try to clean them off, only to get upset with the cold snow. He looked up at me and told me, "All done," and then went and stood by the door to be let back in:

"Snow Spray" did not go as planned. I'm pretty sure Andrew had more fun with the activity than Oliver did (Andrew went out with the spray bottle after we came back in). Although Oliver didn't have fun spraying the snow with dyed water, we weren't really out anything by trying. The cost as negligible, and clean up was a snap (other than our stained fingers, of course). I give the activity a D based on this experience, but I'm sure other families will have more success with it. So, if you're looking for something to do on a not-so-cold, snowy day, toss on some clothes you're not attached to (in case you stain them) and have at it! I hope your child enjoys it more than mine did.

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