Work in Progress

I'll be the first to admit that I let my children watch too much TV. However, as part of my Work in Progress toward being a Better Mother, I have a range of (the usual) activities that I spring on them throughout the day. So we go to the library or the park, we bake cakes and biscuits, we read and draw and paint and dance. Then I feel slightly less of a Bad Mother when I do turn on CBeebies.

A lot of things we can do together, but the problem I've found with having a baby who isn't young enough to be entertained by just watching yet isn't quite old enough to join in, is that you just can't quite keep both your children happy at the same time.

Freyja particularly likes doing the crafty things - anything involving glue and she's happy. But entertaining Theo while I do this stuff with Freyja is not easy. He's just not quite at the arts & crafts stage - he does like to fish the chalk out from Freyja's easel, but that's because he likes eating it, not drawing with it. I usually end up giving him a range of toys to play with and singing various nursery rhymes, while simutaneously helping Freyja and looking interested in what she is doing, while keeping half an eye on what Theo has found on the kitchen floor, while stopping Freyja pouring the entire contents of the bag of glitter on the table, while clapping when Theo shows me how he can now stand, while cutting more pictures out of the catalogue....

Of course, what happens is that I give neither of them my full attention. And then I turn the telly on so I can have break. Like I said, it is Work in Progress...