Water Fun.... Or Not

Yesterday was sort of a lazy day for us. We were home all day and even though I worked during nap time, while the little man was awake we were scrambling for stuff to do. After playing with all his toys, vacuuming, letting him color (which he wasn't too interested in doing), and reading books I decided that after his afternoon nap and snack we would have a little water fun. I had read about the activity before and it's pretty common for preschoolers. So I pulled out a couple of beach towels and the two best little containers I could find and filled them with water, plus a couple of toys. He was thrilled we he saw the surprise waiting for him (below) and it made me excited because he seemed so excited.




Things went really well once I got him sitting in front of the containers and showed him what to do and how he could play with his toys in the water. He splashed a little and moved the toys in and out of the water and for the most part the floor and Garrison were staying fairly dry. Then, I decided to give him a small cup so he could fill it up and pour it out. Not a good idea. I put the cup in the water and then he took the cup out and emptied it right into his lap.



Okay, so no harm done. His shorts were drenched, but everything else was fine. Time to strip down to the diaper and wipe the floor dry under the towel since it was a little damp now too. Garrison played for a couple more minutes and seemed to be having fun. He kept splashing and then got his little spoon and stirred the water. (If you're wondering about the towels and why the set-up is the way it is... originally I had one container of water on each towel. That was until I realized all the water being splashed and played with had no where to go except onto the hardwood floors. Then I decided to move them both to 1 towel so there was room for water to escape and if Garrison got wet he would already be on a towel too.)

30 seconds later, things are still going good.

Bailey decided to come over and check things out too.

Next comes the turning point of our water fun... As you can see, Garrison now has a big spoon that he's filling with water and dumping out. 2 seconds later he fills it with water again and then dumps it all onto the floor. About 10 seconds later as I'm trying to clean up the water on the floor he somehow pulls over the blue container of water. The entire blue container of water. It all happened in slow motion and there was nothing I could do about it. Tons of water went spilling all over the hardwood floors and a half naked toddler went walking right through it. He did slip and fall once but was okay before I grabbed up the other container and put it in the sink and then tried to use the beach towels to cover the pond on my floor.

Water fun wasn't fun anymore. I had a huge mess to clean up and Garrison wasn't listening too well. Eventually I was able to get all the water up (even the water that went under the oven), and all was well, another memory made. But, I decided the little man isn't quite ready for water fun... or maybe mama isn't ready for it. Next time I'll be waaay more prepared and we'll set up in the bathroom, in a bathing suit, with towels everywhere. Our lazy, boring day turned into a full-blown adventure after all our water fun. Soo I'm thinking I'm going to give Garrison some time to get a little older before I attempt this again, and like I said, I'll be way more prepared.