Whose plans…Mommy or Parker?

Throughout the day, I find myself mentally scheduling chunks of playtime with the kids. Maybe play Diggity Dog, then playdough, eat a snack, and play with the kitchen set in the basement. It seems like the perfect plan, but inevitably, as soon as I share my fabulous ideas, Madi decides she wants to build a tent or Parker asks to watch the Fresh Beat Band…

So much for my plans…

My ideas get nixed on a pretty regular basis, which can be a little frustrating. Sometimes, I just want to say, (in a grumpy voice) “No? You don’t want to do this craft I found on Nick Jr. that will teach you about ecology and stimulate your fine motor skills? Fine…just don’t ask me what you should do later, because I won’t have any fantastic ideas then…”

But instead, I am learning that it is much better to let them “take the lead”. It teaches them how to make decisions about how to spend their time and it is interesting to see what they come up with when left to their own devices.

This morning was a perfect example. Madi was at school and Fiona was sleeping, so that left Parker and I to hang out. I don’t end up with much one-on-one time with him, so I asked him what he wanted to do. Here’s what he came up with…

First, he pulled out these thick cardboard tubes that my sister Kristin had made into “telescopes” last summer, and told me that we were going to look for animals. So, we crept around the house, finding animals to look at. One of the “animals” ended up being the bear on the front of his backpack, which we packed full of toys and ran to the park, which was in the kitchen. (And when I say “ran”, we literally ran around the house five times first) At the park, we unpacked and repacked our backpacks, before we ran to the zoo.

The zoo was over by the front door, where we looked at giraffes, bears, and lions through our telescopes and did all the animal noises. Parker then took our map out of his backpack, and decided we needed to go to the jungle. After running a few more laps, we ended up at the craft area where we decided we should color a jungle picture. Parker picked out a picture of the Backyardigans, and we started to color.

After coloring for a while, we decided to turn them into puppets, so I cut out Tyrone, Uniqua, and Tasha, Parker glued them to cardstock, and I taped them to wooden spoons. Parker lugged our puppet show downstairs, and he proceeded to do several shows for me…before our little adventure ended.

Was it anything that I would have chosen to do? Probably not. But it was FUN…and so cool to see his train of consciousness as he moved from activity to activity, without Madi or I telling him what to do. Such a great reminder to give them opportunities to learn how to lead and innovate…and to keep myself from trying to schedule some new and exciting activity every minute of the day.

Who knows? Maybe tomorrow we will go another animal search…I can’t wait to find out…