Cabin Fever

We've got a bit of cabin fever going on here, so some of my mom friends were emailing ideas back and forth of "what to do with your toddler while trapped in the house" to help break up the monotony ... I was impressed by the creative activities they came up with (actually made me feel a little guilty for not engaging JP in more artsy projects like playdoh, fingerpaints and water colors - I don't think tackle football counts as art).

Well, one suggestion I thought could handle was to trace JP's body on a big sheet of paper and let him color on it. I have a tube of that brown paper you wrap packages in, so we used that. JP was pretty skeptical while I coaxed him to lie down on the crinkly paper to let me trace him, but once he got up and saw what I had done, he was intrigued. (Now, as you can see from the photo, I flunked art class, so bear with me). We colored his t-shirt, hair and gave him some snow boots like JP's. Then, we drew a football on his shirt. I think JP enjoyed rolling around on the paper the most and coloring the least.

In true JP fashion, after about 10 minutes of coloring "paper boy," he was through and moved on to something physical. He grabbed a football and started tossing it to "paper boy," then tackling "paper boy." It was hysterical!

So, although my junior high art teacher may cringe, my son now has an official teammate ;)

(oh yeah, paper boy has no pants...don't judge).

And another huge icicle discovery was made on the side of the house last night. It's about 5'5" tall and weighed over 16 pounds...that's right, Jason had to weigh it!