How Much To Play

As a stay-home mom, how much should you play with your never-satisfying toddler? If it's up to him, he's going to want to play with you all his waking hours. Besides cooking, eating, cleaning, and other necessities, how much quality time should you devote to playing with him? It's particularly hard when you have a home business where you have deadlines to meet. In order to be effective, you really have to have 2-3 solid focus working hours at a sitting. After putting him to nap, and by the time you settle in your desk, you have maybe an hour or so at most - that is if you don't need to prepare for this evening's dinner.

I've struggled back and forth between days. There are days when I hardly play with him and feel bad having to push him away to play by himself, which is in itself a major challenge. Then when you see your toddler clinging on to you and whatever that you're doing so eagerly, how hard of a heart you must have to shut him out. Besides, he really doesn't have that many years where he sought you complete attention as these toddler years. You will miss this forever-clinging years in the future when he has his own interests and his own time and space.

Today he's been totally crawling and pulling on my stuff that I try putting on a barrier hoping that he can play by himself outside my work area while he can see me and I can see him. First thing is that these portable pressure barrier can't really take the persistent and consistent pressure of an insisting toddler. It falls down twice within 10 minutes. Second is that the poor baby on the other side of the fence will go play by himself on his various favorite toys for about 2 minute, and keeps coming back with a pleading face, saying 'Mama, come down, Mama, come down.' and 'Mama, play cars, play cars.' I don't know where he got the "down" part, but for sure he knows that he's being shut out, almost like a punishment. I promise I won't do that again.

However, for practical reasons, you still need to find a "balance" or realistically, more of a "compromise". There is really no simple black-and-white answer to this question. As for me, I'd rather not regret his toddler years which is NEVER, EVER, going to come back. (Gee... I'm already missing it now.) I would do these:

1. If you can't make dinner, you can't make dinner. Do take-outs. Make larger portions and reheat the next time.
2. Try to let him fall asleep by himself as much as possible during the day. For my toddler, he's now gotten used to falling asleep by himself in day time, but not so much at night time. At least this gives you an extra 30 minutes or so during the day after you put him down to sleep.
3. Get to your work as soon as you get down to your desk. You aren't getting paid by the day as when you're in the office any more! Minimize non-essential chit-chat.
4. Try to entertain him verbally and intermittently and have him play around you when you're working at your desk. I know sometimes it's hard when he keeps climbing onto you stuff... but as much as you can.
5. Play doodle with him so he can sit next to you and draw, and with luck, you may still be 30% productive.
6. Get a baby sitter on your real hard deadlines! That's better than shutting him out to himself alone.

Hope we can find a spot where we can all be comfortable with and not regret. Go, go, go, mama!

Throwing Things

Somehow, all toddlers have a tendency to throw things. It's the most natural thing to occur, however, probably not the most pleasant act to deal with - food, spoons, bottles, toys, blocks, and whatever their little hands come into contact with.

If you observe it without interference, as they throw a toy down the stairs, they actually watch it so intensely as the toy bounces off the wall and down the stairs. Hey, it's going DOWN, NOT UP when I do this. It doesn't come back! Let's try again, and again, and again. So very scientific. And it's make a sound that coincides with the bouncing. And the sound is different when I throw different objects. Let's try more objects. Hey, then when I throw it towards the wall, or towards mom, I get quite different responses!

After a while, I believe this is something that should be encouraged with any toddler. The only thing, for practicality, is that you have to limit the kind of objects that can be thrown, and the places towards which it can be thrown.

Here's what I've encountered and what I've done with my toddler:

General Throwing
Since "ball" is almost the first word he knows, that's what I choose (and reasonably) to tell him to throw. I encourage him to throw any and all kinds of balls. With the balls that he'll ever get his hands onto, he can pretty much throw it anywhere and in any way he wants. Just put your expensive china away! This gives him a channel to exercise his urge to throw and gives him opportunity to explore the art and act of throwing without breaking stuff and hurting other people. I believe it's much better than banning throwing altogether. It also eliminates a lot of unnecessary tension between his urge to throw and your getting nuts about stopping him, and realistically, you're not going to succeed anyways. It takes about 2-4 consistent and persistent weeks for him to get used to and get the idea of "only balls allowed", but it was very successful.

Forks & Spoons at Meal Time
As for throwing forks and spoons, I've cut up long strands of strings and tie up the fork and spoon to his bib. He can throw them all he wants, and it's never going to hit the floor. Just fish it up - and actually get can quite fun to learn to fish it up with the string. Left hand, right hand, left hand, right hand. Somehow after about 4-6 weeks, he stops throwing at all - probably because there's nothing so funny about it anymore since it's not going anywhere. Now the string is gone, and he "generally" doesn't throw them anymore. I know there's going to be people who tell you that it's too dangerous to put a string-like thing near his neck. But you're not going anywhere and your eyes are not wandering off anywhere during meal time, right? The responsibility is on you.

Other Items at Meal Time
First of all, is to never pick it up from the floor and give it to him again. Nothing is more fun than throwing it out and there goes mom again. Don't make a big deal out of it by saying and reacting too much. Just ignore it like it never happened and simply saying the towel/plate/whatever is gone, no more. It's a challenge to try to finish the meal without that particular object, but you'll get it.

Food at Meal Time
Same thing. Whether it's throwing it away, pushing it away, or spitting it out. Don't make a big deal out of it. Don't emphasize how bad a behavior it is and how messy it is. Do you seriously expect a toddler meal time to be clean anyways? Use a rubber bib with a big scoop at the bottom. If it lands on the bib, just scoop it out like you would in his bowl and give it back to him. Put a plastic sheet on the floor at home. Clean it like you would your plate, so you can feel comfortable enough to pick it back up and put it in his mouth. Frankly, how much food are you going to make if he throws more than half of it away at each meal? Believe me, after a while, it's no fun anymore and he'll outgrow it.

Hope it helps some of you out there!