Quest for Creative

I have no idea what to do with a toddler. I admit defeat!! While good moms are doing bean sorting, or making hot air balloons from the free balloons they give you at the supermarket or walnut boats to float on a rainy day (www.yellowpop.com), I am plunking my kid in front of the TV. I can literally hear his tiny mind rotting.

Why, you might ask, aren't you making worksheets and fun crafts and going on field trips to donut factories? Well, the short answer is that I am lazy. But the other answer is that I have tried to do these things, and what normally happens is he throws a fit and I end up losing my patience and yelling or quietly doing the craft by myself cause he loses interest and starts throwing toys against the wall to see which breaks first, me or the toy.

I see a balloon and think "wow, something else to be hit with" not, "hey I bet I can teach my kid weight and cause and effect and history with this balloon!" My mind just doesn't work that way, I am at a loss. I got a baby pool to play with Oliver in, and while some kids actually do things with water, he stands there and begs for me to sit with him. And we sit there...for hours. It is mind numbingly boring. If I try to involve him, he refuses. Oh and remember, I have a baby who hates being outside and it is impossible to do fun crafts with an unwilling toddler with an immobile baby squirming in your lap.

I feel so powerless in my parenting, so unworthy of the young minds that I am left in charge of day after day. I would love to unplug...but then what? 9 hours of overwhelming boredom or unwavering meltdowns. I find myself resorting to snacks to keep him from being bored, which is TERRIBLE parenting. I need a book or a list of activities, or a curriculum or SOMETHING that keeps me from dreading every day. I love this age he as at, he wants to discover the world, but I feel like I keep blindfolding him.

I say no to the kid about 10000000 times a day. He is always completely surprised when I say yes, sometimes he tantrums because he doesn't understand what yes means. Tonight I let him climb on our cars, crawl underneath them and pick the leaves off my plants because I couldn't say no one more time. I have never seen him happier. He kept looking back at me waiting for me to scream NO! but I just smiled. He wasn't hurting me, or the baby, or himself or the car. Heck the plants look like a deer got to them, but plants grow back right?

I have got to figure out a way to teach my kid to be a kid instead instead of the couch potato automaton I have made him into. Ugh, I am so ashamed, I need help...