Rice, Rice Baby

I do not like sitting in the house all day, can't stand it. But, when you have a sick little boy at home, you just can't go on fun outings. What to do, what to do? I was trying to think of something we could do that would keep both Eli and Bella entertained for a while and also seated because Eli did not need to be running around.

When Bella is sleeping, Eli and I can do things we don't normally do while she's awake, like play board/card games, paint, etc. Bella likes to paint, but she also likes to eat the paint, so it's usually a quick activity when she participates. Card games are, of course, not age appropriate for her right now. What could we do that would be fun, engaging, and not very messy? "Ahh, what about the rice tub? I wonder how Bella would do with that?" I thought. I knew there would be a little rice I would have to pick up, but it was okay since I sold our kitchen table and we could play in the dining area. The wood floor would make for easy clean up.

It started just fine. Eli was excited to play with his rice tub, and Bella liked putting her hands in it. Eli started to scoop some rice out of the tub and transfer it to a different container. One of the scoops didn't make it to the second container and ended up being spread out all over the floor. It wasn't all that bad, though...


...that is until Bella picked up, and dumped, the second rice container just as Eli was about to put a scoop of rice in it (and just as I was taking this picture).


Bella must have thought spooning the rice onto the floor was the thing to do because that's what she started doing. Eli decided he would try to clean up the rice. Bella obviously didn't care that Eli was trying to pick up the rice. She was spooning it onto the floor and grabbing handfuls of it and just dropping it on the floor, watching the grains of rice bounce of the floor.


Guess Eli got tired of trying to get the rice off of the floor. It was kind of like when I try to clean the play area before it's time for them to go to bed- it's totally pointless. Anyway, he deiced to join Bella.


We ended up playing with the rice for about an hour. They both had such a good time, and although I am still finding grains of rice around the house, it was very easy to clean up.