Busy Boy

So, my SIL Michele handed down this book to us: The Toddler's Busy Book.  Her boys are 8 and 10 now so they are a little old for the ideas. I initially looked at it and thought, "Oh that's a fun book, I'll have to see if there are any good ideas in it." And then promptly put it in my cabinet and kind of forgot about it.  I got it out the other night and discovered it really does have some fun ideas. Now, maybe these are things that all you creative people would come up with on your own, but I am not so creative and I need HELP!  Dinner time is such a disaster and Xander is constantly trying to be right in the middle of "helping" me cook. So, right before I started dinner I decided to try one of the ideas.  I put a couple of towels on the floor, put some corn meal (the book recommended rice, beans, etc. basically anything with an interesting texture) in a container; and added some uncooked pasta and a bouncy ball. I also gave him a couple of other containers that were different sizes. He poured the corn meal between the containers, fished out the pasta, and had a jolly time. He played for an hour while I unloaded the dishwasher, loaded the dishwasher, other various tasks, and made dinner!  Yes, it was messy. But totally worth it! I just put the containers in the sink, loaded up the towels, dumped everything on the towels in the garbage and stripped Xander down to the diaper. Cleanup really was only about 5 minutes for an hour's worth of peace! These are pictures from the end when he had basically dumped everything out onto the towel and he is a mess.  I can't wait to try more of the ideas! Thanks Michele!