H is out of town until tomorrow afternoon. C took an early nap and I highly doubt he'll take another one today. This means we have another 5.5 waking hours to get through until bedtime.
We've already been to Target. We've already read a million books. It's too cold and windy to play outside. Help!
He's 15.5mo and he's a snotty mess today, so I don't know that I should take him anywhere else public. I could walk around the mall with him in the stroller, I suppose, but then I'd be tempted to spend money I don't have.
Pull toys out he hasn't seen in awhile? Any friends you could go visit? Movie? Play-doh? blocks? scarves/sensory stuff sensory bin with rice/noodles/beans/whatever race cars?
I'd just be inclined to go about my afternoon doing whatever I want to do and have him follow along (DS followed me around all morning while I cleaned a couple closets/decluttered for the Christmas onslaught).
ditto spk926 on the long bath! We do that sometimes when we're looking for things to do. I also got a shower curtain from the dollar store so we can do messy things on it. That way, I can just throw away the curtain at the end instead of trying to wrangle him while also cleaning up something messy. Go straight to the long bath after that! I'm looking at the same problem for a lot of weekend days this winter....cold, h is gone, what should we do all day? I looked up music classes and things like that, but they're all so expensive!!
We buy butcher paper from IKEA and tape a ton of it to the floor, overlapping, then draw buildings and roads on it. DS1 helps draw and then we get all the cars out and he zooms them around. That may be a little old though. I can't remember when we started doing that.
We also cook together a lot. He started as soon as he could reliably stand next to me on a chair. He stirs and steals chocolate chips.
Blanket forts. A few dining room chairs and a couple large blankets and pillows.
Thanks for all the great ideas! So far we have colored, played with popsicle sticks/pipe-cleaners/pom poms, taped a bag to the wall with a bucket underneath (I improvised hermione), and played with rice in a tupperware container. Then he played a game he made up where he rolled his cars off the coffee table over and over to watch them fall.
When we went to change his diaper, he grabbed his monkey from his crib. When I asked if he wanted to lay down with monkey, he nodded! Miracles do happen!