Lately, Scarlette has been having a tough time with independent play.I would really like for her to grasp this concept because as I love the kid, I do not love playing The Made Up Adventures Of Buzz Lightyear And Bob The Tomato all day long.
Mostly because she always makes me be Bob The Tomato.
Anyhow, I felt as though at three years old she needed to start learning how to entertain herself for stretches of time during the day.
And that went over really great, if by really great you mean that any time I attempted to act on this idea she had a total meltdown whereupon she would stand in the middle of her room sobbing “I JUSHT DON’T KNOW WHY MY MOMMY WON’T PWAY WIF ME! I JUSHT DON’T KNOW!”
Honestly.
I have no idea where she gets the dramatics from.
Finally I brought out an old-fashioned egg timer and set it to two minutes.
(Related: I have never in my life actually used one of these for eggs.)
“You can play with ANY of the toys in your room that you want to and then, when the timer goes DING, Mommy will come in and play with you!” I explained to her.
We have gradually worked our way up to ten minutes, which might not seem like a long time but trust me, IT IS.
(I can only pretend to be a giant, talking tomato so much in one day, y’all.)
Over the last couple of days I felt as though my grasp on time management was just really terrible. The timer would ding and I would think “Seriously? I got nothing accomplished in ten minutes!”
Yesterday I got suspicious that perhaps I was not actually the problem and so I watched the camera monitor after I left Scarlette’s room.
Scarlette happily played with Buzz Lightyear for a few minutes and then she walked over to the egg timer, looked around cautiously, and then spun the dial to zero.
It went DING! and she ran in my room shouting “MOMMY! DA TIMER GO DING! YOU BETTER COME PWAY WIF ME NOW!”
With shenanigans like these, I have no idea what I am going to do when she is a teenager.
