Invitation to play cardboard masterpiece

I have been feeling pretty guilty this week about the amount of time I am spending during our day on work. I work a twelve hour day from 2am to 2pm but normally there is downtime where I can take time to make and have breakfast with the men, make lunches for them, do some housework, and spend time with little S. For some reason this week between being needed more at work, his dad being gone on his days off and things around the house needing to be done; I feel like I have been letting little S down. He is a fabulous kid who I don't send  to day care so he has been having a lot of alone time playing with his toys and not a lot of me time.

I decided to make an effort to give him some invitations to play either with me or without me that are special for him.

This was super quick to put together - I grabbed one of the boxes from our Christmas in January day and opened it up. I wrote on a piece of paper.. Can you color the whole box? Mommy thinks you can. I then put it in the middle of the living room where we spend our day and added a box of washable crayons and washable pens, and his two easy grip crayons. The flat box would be great for kids of any size.

Little S caught a glimpse of this as his dad brought him downstairs for breakfast and couldn't wait to check it out. He refused to get into his high chair, refused his milk, he wanted nothing but to go check it out. So we postponed the breakfast which was getting cold on the table and I let him do his thing. I read to him what the paper said.. and showed him that he could use a color crayon on the cardboard or the paper. That's all it took and he was scribbling away. After a quick examination of what it was and how it worked he was hungry, and we had breakfast. After breakfast he went right back to playing with the pens. I knew the pens would be his favorite part we just started playing with them the other day and he loves putting the caps on and taking them back off. Since these are washable when he gets it all over his hands or face it comes off with a baby wipe.

I happen to get a delivery of our Amazon Subscription today that came in a larger box and thought he's really liked the flat box but he's small enough to get inside this box. I put the pens away and added the crayons to the box and then put him in it. SCORE one for mommy. This has been something he has enjoyed playing with for a week since I first gave it to him. He's scribbling on the sides and learning to close the box and likes the in and out process because it involves mommy lifting him both ways. This box has been a great toy and is still box shaped after a week.