Improvised Routine

Added a couple of new things to our routine today. I have decided that all messy stuff will be done before Didi's morning nap. Best if he can join us. If not, he shall just play on his own around the house. This way, I will have free time to do learning activities with Jiale during Didi's nap. Right now, I leave it to Jiale whether he wants to join me to do puzzles etc. Sometimes, like this morning, he prefers to play on his own, e.g. with his trains. Then I will just read a book in his room - wait for him and model good habit of reading! : )

(But I'm not sure whether I should call him in or 'lure' him to do the learning activities instead? My main concern is he might need/want more free/independent play. Hmm. In fact, speaking of free/independent play, some authors say that the parent should be 'fully present' while the child is at play. The child leads the play, while the parent sits next to him and sometimes say things like 'you are putting a blue block on the red block' (to teach colors) or 'that is a good effort' (to provide encouragement). However my current stand is, independent play means he should be playing all by himself :P If he encounters any problems, he should come and look for me to ask for help. I don't want him to get used to me sitting next to him while he plays! If he whines, he can continue whining on his own and I shall NOT go to him! Gotta think on this more.)

While we used to do either free play or learning activities after Didi's nap, I started physical play and music play today. Can't do this during Didi's nap cos it's too noisy! And Didi can also join us : )

For physical play, I was inspired by the book The Art of Roughhousing. What we did today - I have a set of hopscotch mats from ELC and we played hopscotch. So fun and can help me lose weight too, LOL. Didi participated by blocking our way, LOL. Anyway it got Jiale all excited and sweaty : ) After that I did the Rogue Elephant with both boys, more fun, more sweat, more laughter!
Then we moved on to music play. Played a CD and we just danced and shook some toy musical instruments. Jiale was running around in circles with the instruments! I am so glad I have added in the physical play and music play elements. They are definitely fun and most probably good for the boys. Used to do them too, but it was once in a blue moon.. Gonna stick to the new routine, hope it's not too late for Jiale!

And if the boys are otherwised engaged, I shall just hang around and sing along to a CD. They can ignore me, it's ok :P As it is, they don't get much time to play together.. (because Didi has 2 naps a day!!) so if they wanna play with each other, good!

It feels great to have a routine in place, cos when I have new things to add/change, I can just look at our usual routine and plan how to slot in the new things. It also helps me to get things done.. otherwise the days just seemed to pass us by.. then I looked back and realised I had done nothing!