Early New Years Resolution

I've decided to be a more hands on Mom to Henry.

I bought a book on Amazon called The Toddlers Busy Book (I also got The Preschooler's Busy Book because Henry's quickly approaching that age, and I wasn't sure which book would be more appropriate for him). I first got this book because I was in a desperate attempt to get Henry to start behaving and I thought having something for him to do might help.

As I started skimming the introduction of the book, it made me think that being a more hands on Mom would be a great New Years Resolution for me. Henry has always played well by himself, but now that Henry's to the age that he can start DOING these kind of activities I think its time to start becoming more involved in his day to day activities (and also because we're housebound for a few months during the winter, he's already getting bored) - and maybe make it a little more structured (as structured as you can get with a 3 month old...). So during George's naps, I'm going to forget about housework and getting Bakery stuff done, and I'm going to spend some quality time with my 2 1/2 year old. (When will the housework and Bakery stuff get done? We'll have to wait and see where that fits into the day, maybe when the worlds collide and both the children are sleeping at the same time!)

So, in trying to keep my New Years Resolution, I am going to Blog about it here - so you can keep tabs on me and make sure I stick to it.

First up, the book talks about getting all these "boxes" of stuff/activities together that keep your toddler busy.

'Kitchen Box' -- a box of unbreakable kitchen items (a pan, utensils, measuring cups, etc)
'Busy Box' -- a box of activities that he can do on his own (crayons, play dough, etc)
'Crazy Box' -- a box of what I guess I would call dress up items
'Rainy Day Box' -- this is just a jar with slips of paper that have activities to do on a rainy day
and many more...

Most of the items are things that you'd normally have around the house, or should have if you want to do any type of activity with your toddler -- so first thing I gotta do: Gather all these items!

I'm also going to pick 4 of the activities in the book to do a week. Whether they be on weekdays or the weekends, it doesn't matter - I figure there's 3 days of the week that I have to run errands with the kids or they're at daycare or something is going on. And I figured 4 is an achievable goal for me to begin with.

I'll post later on with pics (hopefully!) on how the activities work out.