I've come to realize in a world of constant go-go-GO! and stimulation with our electronic devices, everyone in my house needs a little quiet time. Like most families we are constantly on the move between activities, errands, school, and just life in general. Life is rarely quiet and I realized that not just mommy and daddy need a little quiet time, but also The Cutes.
They both get naps or rest periods each day, but the rest of the day is filled with playing, extra circulars, and a social schedule that rivals the President's. While being busy is good, so is learning to relax.
So a few weeks ago I set out to make a little quiet time in each of our days, or even choosing quiet activities, where each of us had to be by ourselves and key word here - quiet.
Cute has a space in his room that we have planned for such activities. A bean bag next to his library to sit and read, and some floor space to play. However, Little Cute's room is still set up as her nursery. So I decided to create a similar space in her room for her at home quiet time.
L.C. is still way into all things Minnie and Mickey right now so when I saw
this Minnie chair, I knew it would be the perfect piece to add to her room for her quiet space.
The moment she saw it she was super excited, and wouldn't let the box out of her sight.
The nice thing about
the Minnie Mouse Club chair it is storable - so we can inflate/deflate as needed. It only took a few seconds to set it up, and her little space was ready to go. (P.S. - If you don't have a Minnie fan, don't fret - this chair comes in a ton of cute options I noticed...
Ninja Turtles, Paw Patrol,
Frozen &
Cars!)
She loves her new space, and actually uses it way more than I thought she would. She picks out a few of her books, grabs her "Ellie Bear" and simply reads in it for a bit. A few times I have caught her just lounging in
the chair with her paci.
This week I noticed that even though we were home for Thanksgiving Break, and things were a lot less hectic than normal, The Cutes were beginning to tire of being around the house and playing outside. All that extra energy was being channeled into mass destruction of our home. The quiet space wasn't working, so I decided to take the party elsewhere.
Normally, I would have taken them to the local bounce house place and let them wear themselves out, but I figured flipping off the couch and bouncing endlessly on
our indoor trampoline would have done the trick. Instead I decided to switch gears, and thought of a quiet activity.
We brought this party to the library. I hadn't taken Cute to the library since an unfortunate Story Time incident that made me decide that I might need to move zip codes and never show face there again. Now that we are older, wiser, and and much more insane I felt like we could make an appearance once more (still at a completely different location).
The Cutes surprisingly loved it and we spent an entire hour hanging out
quietly in the children's section. I was amazed. They were even excited that they could bring a few books home (we will see how it goes once we have to return them). And... to my amazement, once we returned home they were so excited about their books they instantly brought them to their quiet spaces.
Now, I not only had a successful activity logged and an extra hour of quiet time - I just hit the mommy lottery!
Here's hoping that the quiet space continues to be successful and in the meantime I will be brainstorming for some more "quiet activities".
What do you do to create more quiet time in your little ones day?
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