The Farmer in the Dell

   As I said in my last post, Monkey's skull fracture will take about 2-3 months to heal itself, and in the meantime we're supposed to be taking care that she doesn't injure herself further.  The doctor was very clear when she said no swings, no trampolines, no climbing, rough-housing, or basically anything that could increase her risk of falling for a week.  The doctor failed to mention that telling your daughter to go get dressed was a no-no.  I walked into her room a few minutes after I sent her in there and found her two feet off the ground, standing on her wobbling, plastic toy kitchen in the closet, trying to pull a dress off the hanger!  I think I almost had a stroke!  I'm also under the impression now that my darling J must have given her a mission to give me as much grief as possible while he's away, because everything that's happened so far sounds like something my mother-in-law would tell me he had done as a child.  Between the two of them, I'll be grey-headed by the time I'm thirty.

    The worst part about the doctor's orders (even though they're reasonable) is that they eliminate our favorite option for passing the time: the park.  Monkey can't even use our own little swing-set in the back yard.  This has caused Mommy to be a bit more creative.  Today we made Farmer in the Dell Puppets.

  I found a great site that has printables to turn toilet paper rolls into puppets, and I'll link each character individually.

Here's what you need:
Print outs of the farmer, the wife, the child, the dog, the cat, the mouse and the cheese
6 toilet paper rolls (or three paper towel rolls cut down to size)
1 toothpick
crayons
glue

Simply print out the characters.  Have your little one color them, or you can choose to print one out that is already colored, and then assemble them on the toilet paper roll.  The cheese came with the mouse printout, so I just taped it to a toothpick.

Monkey loved this!  She's been playing with these things more than her toys today.

She was singing, "The cheese stands alone"

After the joy of singing “The Farmer in the Dell” wore off, we lined these puppets up as pins and bowled with them.

Next we made a fort in Mommy’s office, where I was able to catch a break while Monkey entertained herself with two activity books.  Plus she was seated, therefore less likely to hurt herself.  

Apparently dogs are allowed in this fort.

This Tag Junior Reader was a gift from Monkey's grandmother, and it's  the perfect thing for when she needs to be entertained but Mommy needs to be busy.

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After all that and a movie, there was still too much time before bed, and Monkey was getting more and more insistent on the park, so I took her outside and let her run around with the dogs, play with chalk, and roll in the dirt to atone for the lack of her favorite pass-time. All I can say is thank God for Pinterest, because I am out of creativity, so that's where I'm headed now.

Only, change "Facebook" to "Blogger" and you've got me pegged.