- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Parenting
goodheartedmommy
member
Let's be real: what do enjoy playing/doing with your kids and what to you hate?
goodheartedmommy
member
in Parenting
I enjoy going outside and playing ball or coloring with chalk. I enjoy taking them on bike rides. I enjoy building blocks (sometimes). I love reading to them and I love doing puzzles. I enjoy building train tracks. I love playing beauty shop when they style my hair and do my make-up, lol. I love taking them places like the zoo or museum.
I despise playing cars with Ethan. Really, it consists of me sitting on the side, having to watch no less than 200 laps where he gives me play by plays and slow-mo's. Cute for a minute, not for 2 hours. And there's absolutely no touching the cars. I am really not into playing barbies or babies, either. I'm not into playing with them on the playground. I'd rather sit on a bench on the side.
What about you?
ETA: I LOVE cooking with them.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Let's be real: what do enjoy playing/doing with your kids and what to you hate?
ditto the car thing. sean can take them out of his case line them up and then put them on his gargage and act out driving situations for over an hour. other than him saying things like hey lady watch out where you are going, i just don't find it entertaining.
i like everything else. favorites always have been reading and outings and i love play acting with them, (we do this whole fe fi fo fum i smell seanie doodles yum and I am this big firece giant).
oh, one more i don't like. matt can spend three hours in the snow sledding, tunneling, rolling around. I like snow play for about an hour tops. I'm not a fan of wet and cold. so far sean isn't either so dh and matt sled for longer, sean and i run back inside.
I like building a new track on the train table, but I hate 'playing' trains. I like the thinking things....blocks, puzzles, etc....but I could really leave behind the playing house/kitchen/toy story re-enactments.
I enjoy 'doing' things...walking to the park, going to the library or bookstore, the children's museum, the bounce house, the zoo,
At this point, I don't really like cooking with them around....because 1 in the kitchen leads to 2, then the twins want to be in there...and it just makes me really nervous. If we do some special baking, we do it while the twins nap, and we can all be around the table.
I actually don't play a lot...B & N play so well together, and they are usually in their own little world.
I love: reading to them, taking walks with them, swimming in the pool with them, singing to them, dancing with them.
I dislike: playing kitchen (they make a huge mess and don't want to clean up), ditto on the drawing.
I like reading, crafting, beauty shop (they do my hair), library, sometimes cooking (if it's something simple).
I dislike pretty much any pretend play. I know that's awful but it's so repetitive. Dh likes it though so he does that with them. He gives me grief for not participating but everyone has their limits and that's mine.
That's why I made this post! Just to make sure my feelings were normal
My friends all agree, especially ones with more than one kid! Just seeing if it was a nestie sin or not!
I like coloring, going on outings, sometimes shopping, sometimes I will engage actively in pretend play, watching movies, anything that doesn't make a mess, sometimes cooking, traditions, reading, swimming...I got to be in the mood for some of this stuff...I think my favorite is pushing them on the swings!
I don't like anything that makes a big mess, i have a hard time doing crafts doing things with the older two if the baby is awake like crafts, play doh..sometimes I get annoyed with pretend play, they love playing "pack up and travel." It was sooo cute the first 100x now its annoying. I get to unpack.
I engage with my kids a lot but I don't feel like I play with them enough (usually due to the baby). He is mobile and everywhere!
I like coloring, cooking, reading, and play dough. For some reason I find play dough very relaxing! I also like going places - the children's museum, the zoo, etc.
I hate playing dolls with a passion. I'm not so good with the make believe stuff. DD always wants me to play with her princess dolls with her, and it just drives me batty!
I don't really enjoy playing with them much at all.
Sad, but true.
I LOVE dancing with them. And impromptu silliness. Aside from that, they have each other as playmates (by design, mind you! LOL!).
this
I feel bad, but I really don't. I love the outings, going outside, I love doing stuff with my older (puzzles or games, baking, other projects) but we can't do a lot unless the younger one naps b/c she's hell on wheels! Plain ol' at home play with toys? NOT a fan. Oh well, guess there could be worst qualities in a parent.
Magna-tiles!!!
I truly love playing with them.
Currently I am loving Moon Sand. Ethan and I can play w/ the moon sand for at least an hour at a time.
We like to go on walks, bike rides, have dance parties, he helps me cook dinner, do art/craft things, bake, play hide & seek, color, play-dough.
I have a hard time enjoying games like Candy Land and Chutes & Ladders w/ him b/c he is so easily distracted by other things and isn't really a rule follower. Which is totally fine, but it makes me twitchy, so I try to avoid those things.
It depends these days. Its really hard because they are are at such milestone differences in terms of ages (1 and 3).
One on one? I LOVE doing anything when they're alone. I'll build trains, play blocks, color, swingset, bikes, cooking, play with dress up, whatever. My 1 year old is perfectly content sitting in my lap while i read books, same with my 3 year old. If i try to read together? horrible! They love each other so much but also are extremely competitive already. In another year I think it will be much easier to do things all together. Right now my 1 year old needs a lot of help, obviously, doing things my 3 year old enjoys. And if we do things she enjoys, he's bored or jealous and takes over.
I like cooking, arts and crafts, reading, finding new playgrounds, snuggling while watching TV, blocks
I don't like playing cars; wrestling most of the time, especially now that I'm pregnant; playing baseball. DS will beg for me to throw him some pitches and then he'll spend the entire time trying to kick them or hit them with the bat backwards. I don't know why it annoys me, but it does.
ETA: I really don't like pretend play either, and I'm so glad to read I'm not alone. I do like playing board games until DS tries to cheat!
I enjoying doing things- cooking together, gardening together, raking leaves and jumping into them, going on nature hikes, etc. I also love going place like museums, the awesome children's department of our library, the zoo and other fun destinations.
At home reading is always good, so is snuggling on the couch and watching a movie. I've got quite a bit of patience for messy arts/crafts too.
But in all honesty? I pretty much hate playing with most toys and pretend/imaginative play is nearly impossible for me. I just can't do it. I also am not the kind of mom who plays with kids on the playground- I let them run around to wear themselves out while I sit back and gossip with the other moms. And I really don't enjoy going to the park unless I'm going with another mom friend because sitting by yourself on the bench is boring, LOL. And pushing a kid on the swing forever and ever? Pure torture!
For a while, I really hated reading with ML. It was excruciating as she sounded out every word, even ones she had just read, or words that should be easy like "the". She would literally go "Tuh-Huh-Ee, the", when "Tuh-Huh-He" sounds nothing like "the", so why she had to sound it out is beyond me. But a single 4 line page would take about 10-15 minutes, and I had to grit my teeth through every "Tuh-Huh-Ee." And, by the time she got to the end of the page, she'd forgotten what the first words were. Now, thank God, she's a lot faster, and I love reading with her.
I also have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of the pretend play with the toys right now, mainly because although she seems to have a big imagination, it doesn't seem to extend into this area. Like, playing Littlest Pet Shop. Even when I'm in character, she tells me I'm not doing it right. Her idea of playing with them is simply to stick on as many band-aid stickers as she can or stacking them up, but not actually going through the pretend of how they got hurt, why they got to the hospital, being treated by the doctor, etc. So I'm always "doing things wrong."
I do like to do pretty much everything else with them, though. Love reading to them, cooking, playing outside, coloring, etc. I love just wrestling and tickling them; I think that is pretty much their favorite activity with us too, and we do that a lot. I really like doing the train tracks with them, or building things. They love the lincoln logs, and so do I.
I just have a lot on my mind most of the time. I wish I could shut off my mental to do list when I'm around them. I'd enjoy myself a lot more.