Chubbs is awake for an average of 12hours everyday (sometimes more :/), and I'm with him the entirety of that duration. It's exhausting trying to find interesting ways to occupy a toddler for that long. Minus the 2hours he spends on meals and snacks, another hour on milk, and 30min of TV twice a day, I'm left with having to entertain him for 8 long hours, much on my own.
I've been conditioned to be creative in turning what I have on hand into something fun for him (because I can't afford to buy him new toys everyday). I hardly ever throw anything away until Chubbs has "played" with him. Yesterday, after finishing a tray of Ferrero Rocher, I let him punch out the domes that held the chocolate (he loved the sound and the feel of the plastic crinkling under his fingers). After he was done, I flipped it over, and he punched them out all over again. Easy game, but he spent about 15min doing it over and over. Then I used it as a drum, and taught him counting as I hit the tray 5 times and have him do the same. Surprisingly, he hit it 5 times too. That simple tray provided him with almost 30min of fun.
Later, I gave him an old pail and spade, and poured his small alphabet blocks (which belonged to another train set) out on the floor. I asked him to shovel the blocks into the pail and pour everything out once it got too full. After he got bored, he turned the pail over, and noticed the bottom of the pail was made of small squares (meant for building sandcastles). He immediately reached for his alphabet blocks, and started stacking them over each square on the pail. I was pleasantly surprised because he just demonstrated to me that he understood shape and size. He instantly knew, just by looking, that the blocks would fit over the squares.
Once he got bored with stacking, he decided to "cook". He has been helping me in the kitchen quite a bit, and he has such a blast everytime! He helps me stir pancake batters, beat eggs for an omelette, pour milk/ oil into bowls when I'm baking, hold the electric whisk as I'm whisking egg whites, etc. He absolutely adores giving me a hand, and keeps asking if he can do more. So here's Chubbs "cooking" his blocks, and he even gave me a spadeful to try when he was done. I asked if he was making pancakes, he nodded. After tasting, I told him that they were delicious, and promised he could help me with real pancakes over the weekend. He nodded again, said, "Yeah", gave me a huge grin, and took a big bite of his "pancakes".
Testing him further, I asked if he could put a toy shark in the pail. He looked at it, looked at the pail, shook his head and said, "Big". Impressive. So the shark stayed quietly by his side the whole time as he played; an unbelievable 2hours of playing with his spade, pail and blocks.
