The Alpha Initiative: Friday night. We went to the Inside Playground in Watertown. This is a giant warehouse type place with bouncy houses, ride-on toys and everything in between. Kids can run around and they have good chairs set up for bored parents. To visit a place like this is to play roulette with your child's health. Same goes for any indoor play space where drooly kids share toys and germs. But to stay home is to play roulette with your sanity which is also tremendously valuable. Ultimately, my mental well-being won out and off we went for about an hour and a half.
He had a great time and I only spent a couple minutes on the Bored Parents bench. In this environment, 5 minutes can feel like 30. Take it from someone who knows. And in case you are wondering, yes, Ashton came down with a cough two days later. Hard to pin it on the Inside Playground though. Too late anyway, I already bought a pass. Mom: 1, Germs: 1.
The Beta Initiative: Saturday morning. We hit Mucky Kids, which is a children's art studio in Cambridge that has drop-in from 10-5. This has been on my list of places to try for awhile now and I'm so glad we did. There were tables set up with all kinds of activities and Ashton's favorite was by far the "fake snow" table. He spent the majority of the time scooping the snow and hoarding all the trays, which was fine because almost no one else was there.
Then we did some painting:
How the painting station worked is you smeared some paint in a tray and laid down a piece of paper or felt across the top. Once you peeled it off, you were left with a print that you got to take home. Now, I'm still at the stage where if Ashton sticks a sticker on a piece of paper, I call it art, date the back of it and make arrangements to save it forever. So I brought his print home, stuck it in a little frame for our photo wall and then! Gasp! Do you see it? The bird?
It's like, a Phoenix or something! I always thought Ashton's artwork was special, but, WHOA. The symbolism was not lost on me. I would win this weekend!
Where was I. Oh, and after painting was Ashton's favorite station, "tools":
I have to admit, I left here a little inspired by the things she had set up. Pinterest can get way too overwhelming with all the activity ideas but seeing certain kinds in action (i.e. using tees as nails and cardboard instead of wood) make them seem really doable.
The Gamma Initiative: Sunday. I knew I wouldn't find fake snow, but we went shopping and I got all kinds of things at the dollar store for a rice sensory box. You can use beans or lentils also, but basically, buy a bunch of arbitrary things, throw them in a bin, give your kid a scooping device and you'd be surprised at how much time it buys you!
Like, really surprised. And I only had to vacuum for about an hour after he was done. Rice is pesky when it gets in your carpet. But. so. worth. it.
Overall, I gave myself several pats on the back for this weekend. Naturally I told Jason all about it and last night I smugly got out the rice box to show him what a miracle it was.
Well. If you are not familiar with "the law of diminishing returns" perhaps another definition is in order for this post: "The tendency for a continuing application of effort or skill towards a particular project or goal to decline in effectiveness after a certain level of result has been achieved." In other words, this was not the hit it was on Sunday. There was significantly less interest and in a matter of minutes Ashton flung rice all over the place and ran off to dump his cars. *Sigh*. So this means Occupy Ashton remains in active status and I'm still deployed. Mission not accomplished. Over and out.
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