What's your favorite activity to do with your toddler?

I think just wrestling with him on the bed, tickling him, and pushing him in the swing – before I beging to push him he gives me kisses, :)

They are the cutest when sleeping.

Naps. Lots of naps. ;)

I always liked the messy stuff. Mixing corn starch and water to make “goop,” fingerpainting, or even foot painting (we have some framed footprint paintings in the playroom, and it’s amazing how fast they grow), looking for bugs outside, playing in the sprinkler, playing in the mud. Make your own playdoh, bake cookies, glue or tape things to paper, paint the sidewalk with water…there are so many fun ways to play with a toddler.

But I still think napping is the best. I sure miss those naps that lasted all afternoon!

When my kids were that young, I was really biding time until they could get to the 5–10 age range, when we could talk about all kinds of stuff, but they wouldn’t think I was all wet and out of it. Certainly, it was better than when they were infants, but, of course, they got into so much more trouble. Baby-proofing the house was a pain. Especially to meet my wife’s standards.

Anyway, I seem to have pretty much blanked out those years, although if I looked at pictures, I might remember. Ok. I found something: teaching them to swim.

I tell my daughter (who’s grown now) that I used to love holding her by her ankles when she was a baby and dipping her head in the toilet. :)

(j/k)

My daughter is not a toddler anymore (she’s five), but I loved playing with her outside. Playing in the sandbox, just running around, getting dirty in the garden, drawing silly pictures with sidewalk chalk, blowing bubbles and chasing them, playing in her little pool or with the hose. I just love those years. Enjoy it because you never get it back!

going for hikes, listening/dancing to music and playing with our guitars, reading, puzzles, listening to shows on NPR like Prarie Home Companion and Car Talk, folding laundry, planting flowers and watching them grow, legos…

My son needs constant activity, so I’m always trying out new things with him.
We like to go out places, like Chuck E Cheese, Children’s Museum (Please Touch Museum in Philly) We go to the Zoo about three times a month…I let him run around wherever he wants so he burns off some energy. We go to the local library, read books and play with the toys.
At home, we read, play trains, color (he’s getting an easel for his birthday, so we’ll start painting then!) he’s not too much into chalk. We go for walks a lot, in his wagon, or his blue car…or we walk the dog to the local park.

When mine were little, it was either playing in the wading pool in the backyard or making pretend food in our pretend restaurant in the back yard. One of our favorites was Jellyfish Juice. I also liked reading aloud using all the different voices and accents, but they preferred me to just sound like Mommy.

I love just talking (although giddy up a pony, and airplane on my feet are pretty fun too!) As a grandma, I love trying to figure out how their mind works. I remember people thinking I didn’t understand when I was a toddler. I love listening to them and getting their view of this wonderful world.

@daloon . . .perhaps pets would have been a better choice?

My son turned 6 this year and is graduating Kindergarten, tomorrow…bittersweet moment! I was thinking about his younger years earlier today, it brought many found memories back to mind.

- He loves to dance, did when he was a toddler, still does. We could dance for hours.
– Bubbles! I had to blow the bubbles, he would chase them. “Bubbles gone, Mommy! More bubbles!”
– The park to explore. I don’t care what the weather was like, we would suit up and go. The muddier, the better. That’s what rain boots are for. :)
– Holding him, listening to him and singing with him. That had to be my favorite. He still sits in my lap, he’s a bit on the smaller side, but he’s getting to be a “big” boy. He doesn’t stay as long, anymore. :(

It seems like I haven’t forgotten a second, but I know I have. I’m so happy I wrote a lot of things down. There is so much that I enjoyed with him.

Now, I have a 15yr old daughter, too. My list could go for miles, she has allowed two items. she’s so picky!

- The park, feeding the geese. She would throw food out, her little fistful and yell, “Share duckies! Share!” It wasn’t always that clear sounding, but you could get what she was saying.
– When it snowed, she loved snow angels. It didn’t matter if there was an inch or 10 inches, we still had to do snow angels!

I wrote everything I possibly could write down with her, too. It seems like yesterday, though! :)

@cak Nothing beats a slushy, muddy snow angel made in a half inch of snow! :)

@jonsblond – that’s right! :)

Edit:: besides the hot chocolate mustache afterwards!

Here’s an example of what we do it takes a lwhile to load. He does all the playing, and I watch.

@YARNLADY : So cute! They’re amazed by simple things aren’t they? Well, I have to tell you that my son enjoyed watching your grandson very much. They look to be about the same age.

@YARNLADY very cute!

@jonsblond my son said hot chocolate mustaches are the best. I’m trying to find a family picture of us, with chocolate mustaches. GRR…I still haven’t found it yet!

Since we’re linking videos (what mom can resist?), here’s one of my son playing hide-and-seek with his stuffed animals. We get a whole bunch of them and dump them in the middle of the floor, then he “hides” them around the room and finds them one by one. That’s something fun we like to do together!

@ubersiren Awwwww, thanks.

@ubersiren So cute, how old exactly? I love his name btw.

@ubersiren – very precious!

Can’t resist either—here’s a video of one of our favorite activities, playing with dry ice. Turn the volume on your speakers down because my kids are loud.

Edited to say: @ubersiren, that video is so cute! I love toddler talk!

My daughter is fifteen now. She is my only child. I loved reading with her. I loved painting and drawing and coloring with her. Days spent in the backyard making mudpies and playing with our dog. Days spent playing barbies for hours. I love being a mom and tried to spend as much time with her having fun! We still have fun together. Time passes by quicker than you think. Your greatest and most profitable investment is the time you spend with your kids.

One of the things my daughter and I used to do was to eat at McDonald’s whenever they had a good toy in the Happy Meal.

He’s just over 2. In the video he was about 18 months. We have since cut off his mullet. Hahaha… that thing was out of control.

@MissAusten: Your kids are so funny… you must have so much fun with them. They’re beautiful!!!

@Blondesjon ha! yea, seriously. it’s depressing. i love you daloon but geez, hun!

Sandbox! we had a seriously huge sandbox, where we’d get out the hose pipe.

whatever it is, its always keeping them busy

Yeah, toddlers are not my cup of tea. But boy, the age they are now is amazing! I love it when they turn into people who can actually communicate sophisticated ideas!

@daloon : I crave those days like a hooker craves crack.

@ubersiren In some societies, women take care of both boys and girls in early years. But at some age—maybe 6 or 7, the boys head over to their fathers for the rest of their upbringing.

I think a lot of guys are like me in that they don’t have much patience for goo goo, ga ga, and keeping fingers out of electric sockets. But few of them will admit it. I have to add that I’ve also met women who don’t like that age, either, but not so many of them.

@daloon I know what you mean… I don’t have patience for that either, and I be women folk. I think it’s just a trying time. though I tend to believe that nature and biology have something to do with gender roles and human behavior. There are also exceptions, of course. I mean, it is tons of fun sometimes, but I think I’ll have even more fun when we can go hiking together and play Wii and stuff.

You know, what you say makes a good point, too. I don’t remember ever doing any real activity before I was about 7, when my dad started taking us for outdoor trips. My mom was (and still is) someone who very seldom left the house, and would be caught dead before she did any physical activity. So, maybe I don’t remember much activity before then because that’s when my dad took over. Hmmmm… hooray for learning on fluther! Thanks for that, daloon.

@daloon 18 month old little boys are my FAVORITE age! They are just walking and look like little men ready to take cahrge of the world!

As long as, every year, every child has someone who thinks this age is their favorite age, the kids will be A-OK!

My daughter is approaching the “tween” years and I can already tell it will not be my favorite age.

@MissAusten , I have a special love for middle school kids too, as long as they’re not my own.

@MissAusten I know! people are all excited to have ‘babies’ and ‘toddlers.’ i can’t imagine someone saying, ‘i’ve always wanted a teenager! let’s have one!’ yikes.
i love em little. until about 7, then it’s ‘little tommy who?’

We are fixing up our yard, after years of neglect. I let him pull on the ivy, and about every three feet or so, I cut it. He runs to the recycle can and throws it away. This goes on for at least an hour. every once in awhile, I let him ‘help’ with the cutters.

Another favorite activity is raking up rocks with his little rake, and putting them in a pail. He then takes them over to the area we are filling in with rocks, to make the edging around the new patio slab we had put in. I have to take a rock every five minutes or so to keep him interested.

I bought a small cart that he loves filling with the bark we are trying to get rid of, and pushing it out to the ‘free bark’ pile we are making out by the street.

The municipal authorities recycle organic material where you live, @YARNLADY? For compost?

@daloon They do where we live. They gather up all the branches on a specific time schedule, take them to the side of the dump, chip them, compost them, and then dole it out to anyone who comes and asks. You have to bring your own truck, though.

@Darwin that’s freakin awesome. there’s no recycling here whatsoever.

@daloon yes, we have a full service program, a container for ‘trash’, for organic material and for all other recycles. The funny thing is the organic can says “green” on it so uninformed people put everything green in it, green bottles, green plastics, even their old green garden hose. They company turns what they can in for cash to help keep the service costs lower.

@YARNLADY Oh that is too funny!!!!

Practice making one in order to have one.