Puddin' on the Ritz

I haven't had very many days in the past 18 months where I've felt like a fun Mum, but today was one. So I wanted to document it here for posterity. Particularly for Teagan, on that dreaded day when she tells me she hates me (shudder). And I needed a little pat on the back, because I was pretty darn proud of myself for tackling this particular activity.

It occurred to me earlier this week when I went to fetch Teagan out of her crib in the morning and the first word she chose to say to me was "Dora" that there's a slim chance we watch a little too much TV around here. Okay, a pretty good chance. She says "Elmo", signs bird when she sees Big Bird and pulls out the stiff arm whenever she sees Swiper, so as to say "Swiper no swiping". sigh.

Here she is a while ago asking to watch Dora (before she could say Dora). "Da Dew" is "Thank You" and "Ees" while patting her chest is please. Hard to say no to.

I've been struggling to come up with things to do with Teagan lately. Brandon's new job takes him 1/2 an hour away, so dropping him off so we can have the car is less than ideal most days. So it's just T and me. All day. Every day. The days get L-O-N-G.
On Wednesday, I cracked and NEEDED to find something for her to do. I had spent the day determined not to let her watch a lot of TV and tried to get her to play with one thing or another. Like most 19 month olds, her attention span rivals that of a gnat, so as soon as I sat down to play something with her, she was off to find something else to destroy. By the end of the day I was exhausted from running up and down the stairs, pulling her off the kitchen table and trying to stop her from unshelving every last one of our DVDs. Like an flustered mother, I consulted Pinterest. I was surprised at the limited results of my "activities for 18 month olds" search. But I saw one thing that I just had to try...

I was making one of those "in between grocery shopping" trips for fillers like milk and eggs. And ended up with packages of pudding, paintbrushes and poster paper. We were doing an activity and she was going to like it.
I must have been under duress to decide so quickly to do something like this, because to put it lightly, I'm not one for messes. Okay, I'm a bit of a neat freak. I can't go to bed at night unless the toys are picked up. I know in my heart of hearts that 5 minutes after Teagan wakes up the house will look like a bomb has gone off, but I need to start my mornings off on the right (meaning clean) foot. But with our 'decent for Vegas' sized backyard and newly acquired hose, I thought that it wouldn't be so bad if we took it outside. I'm glad I chose pudding and not regular fingerpaint. While non-toxic, I don't suppose it's actually intended for eating, which is what Teagan still does with everything. So here's a glimpse of her "puddin' paintin'" or "sitting on a blank piece of paper, eating pudding as slowly as is humanly possible by dipping the wrong end of the paintbrush and licking it." Potato potahto.

She had a little bit of fun, things were going well, and I had renewed faith that the day was looking up. Surely we'd have a day's worth of fun between the paint and the water tub (future post). Then she decided she was done. And the clock struck 9:30. <sigh>

Perhaps the reason she didn't get as messy as I'd planned was because she inherited my neat freakiness. I found her naptime books neatly stacked in the corner of her crib the other day, reminiscent of my compulsive need to tidy. I may find myself wishing the apple had fallen a little further from the tree on this one...