Adventures in Keeping Quite

Let me set the scene for you...CHURCH.  I set J up with a shark book and a baggie of crackers and put his sippy cup of water next to him.  Within 5 minutes he is on the floor.  I pick him up and put him back in the chair.  5 minutes later, back on the floor.  I think "ok he is quite, I'll leave him." Five minutes later he is loudly telling me that a shark goes ROAR, and bites people making a mess(thank you Daddy and Shark Week).  I set him up with crayons and stickers.  Somehow my 2.5 year old colors loudly, think you can hear every stroke, and it's distracting me so I am sure those around me are distracted.  I then put him in my lap and try to interest him in a different book to which he then starts telling me the story. At this point we are about 15 minutes into the service and I am thinking, it's going to be a long hour and an even longer 6 months. 

After our adventure in church by myself yesterday, I decided that I needed some help.  I have been hearing about Busy Bags for quite some time now, in fact when I was pregnant with my second and had a 1 year old I made several small busy bags without knowing I was making them.  I also was reminded of them when I saw a friend post about needing activities to keep her toddler entertained on an airplane.  What is a Busy Bag you might ask?  A Busy Bag is a wonderful bag full of age appropriate activities designed to keep toddlers busy and quite and still for 15-20min at a time. The Busy Bag is usually a gallon baggie with 1 activity per bag.  Perfect for church, doctor appointments, rest time, mommy needs a break time, and any thing else you can think of.  However, I caution you that the beauty of these bags is that they are not used every day...the Busy Bag is so successful because the toddler only sees it every once in a while!  You can google Busy Bags and see so many activities that you can put in your Busy Bag for very little cost.  These are some of my favorites;

1) Mini felt board---Cover a small piece of  cardboard with felt and then include more felt shapes to create different scenes (house, people, animals, or my little one really likes just making his own picture with my scraps)

2) Noodle necklace---1 long piece of yarn with a small pipe cleaner attached to one end and a large washer attached to the other end.  Include some long pasta (ziti works really well) that is hollow.  The child then strings the pasta onto the string.

3) Lacing cards --- You can purchase these from craft stores, but they are super easy to make with a piece of card stock, a hole punch and a shoe lace.

4) Pom pom push---I have seen many versions of these, but my favorite is to take a small container with a lid (small ziploc bowl with a top is perfect) and put a hole in it.  The child then takes pom poms and pushes them through the hole.

5) Foam curlers---This is the easiest one yet!  Take a handful of foam curlers and take the foam part off the stick.  The child then puts the foam back on.  You can have them sort by color if you have different color curlers and you can cut the foam into different lengths.

There are sooooo many activities and ideas that I am sure you all have come up with just by reading my list.  One of the most fun things about Busy Bags (for the Moms of course) is doing a Busy Bag swap.  This is when you provide a certain number of bags all the same activity and swap them with other Mom's so that in the end you have the same number of bags but all new activities!! 

If you are interested in participating in a Busy Bag swap leave a comment below.  I'll organize it and let you know more details as we figure out how many people are interested.  I think it would be perfect to do and have ready for the holidays, helping us all with the stress of traveling (and in our case, extra church services)!!