Water Balloons

After spending literally hours this past weekend reading, and reading, and reading, then shopping, and then organizing, typing, stuffing, and finishing activity packets for the boys to do this summer (although, I still can't walk away from Pin.terest. So I suspect I'll be continuously adding more activity packets), the first Pin.terest idea came to life at my house the other evening.

I introduce to you, the Balloon Pinata. Now, this is - obviously -a simple activity. In the bag were 4-5 balloons and an instruction sheet that simply said something to the effect of "fill, hit, enjoy". Hubby grabbed it as the first one. I think probably because it was hot outside and an easy activity to do.

We made the kid wait like 2 hours from the time hubby filled up the balloons until he could do the activity. We wanted to make sure baby E got in on the action, as it is one of the activities than he can participate in. But, baby E decided to take a 4 (FOUR!!!!!!) hour nap. If you know my kid irl, you know how hard and torturous this waiting was for him. Somehow, we all survived.

The kid was beside himself with glee. Grinning and giggling abounded. Obviously, this was a fun activity, but it also allowed him to practice hand-eye coordination and get some of that energy out. Which is always a good thing at my house. He went to town with that bat, swinging wildly all over the place. Both my expression and the kid's make me smile.

Baby E, in typical baby E fashion, approached this activity in a much different way than the kid. He didn't want anything to do with the bat. Instead, he preferred to just squeeze the balloon over and over. He got 1 balloon to the kid's 3 or 4. And yet, baby E's play time lasted easily 3-4x longer than the kid's. He played with that balloon until all the water was gone. We used the activity to introduce some vocabulary as well, particularly with baby E, that are words that don't necxessarily come up in everyday conversation (i.e. words such as squeeze, burst, impact, etc...).

Overall, I feel like it went well. I'm just hoping it went well enough to encourage hubby to continue to do more activities!

Today's Lesson: You, too, can justify your addiction with Pin.terest. This moves it from "wasted" time, to "productive" time. Which is a total win-win. Or justification. One of those two.