Mommy Confession: We’ve been watching A LOT of TV lately. I keep telling the boys I can see their brains melting and oozing out their ears, and since they are of course boys, they love it. But we needed to get back into doing some activities that stretch that mush between their ears, so today while at Hobby Lobby (with only one child in tow mind you) I picked up a giant variety bag of pom poms and a Perler bead set. Cohen’s preschool class has a huge tub of pom poms and he loves it, and I’m all about the anything pom pom so I knew they’d love it…me, I’d love it…I just didn’t realize how much! Cheap idea for the win!
We used all the play kitchen pots and pans and utensils and they had the time of their life! Seriously though! Of course teacher mom jumped in and we sorted by size and color and threw them at each other with hurricane force.
I knew the boys wouldn’t have any trouble maneuvering and picking up the pom poms, but it was a little bit of a challenge for Emmy. But her fine motor skills were pretty impressive!
It wasn’t long before they decided these were the perfect things for a pretend ice cream shop, and I’m never one to say no to ice cream!
(Disclaimer: yes, these are all over my house. Yes, they can be “messy” but I say to heck with it all! In the precious name of childhood!!)
Then when our sweet little game changer when down for her nap, I busted out an activity for the boys….and me. Perler bead kits. Look it up. Apparently they are a huge deal, one I don’t ever remember partaking in when I was a kid, but apparently they are pretty awesome. And we love awesome things! So I dumped all the microscopic beads onto a baking sheet, showed the boys the general idea and we set to work.
After 10 minutes, my fingers hurt. Like, super achy. I soon realized that this was a fine motor activity for me just as much as it was for the boys. My fingers have never felt fatter…Probably would have been a good time to try using tweezers, as I’m sure all the professional Perlers do, but nah, thats taking the challenge out of it, right?
I was really proud of how long the boys stuck with this, cause half way through my shape, I was ready to throw it against the wall and drink some wine. But they were determined. 
Word of advice for all you future Perlers, NEVER BLOW ON YOUR DESIGN. I noticed that Liam had a fuzzy on his shape, and since he had quite a few beads already placed, I decided that I would gently blow the fuzz away…and then, to my absolute horror, all his carefully chubby finger placed beads scattered across the table. Oops, my bad. I wish I had captured his face…it was priceless. And then he sweetly said, “It’s ok Mom. It was an accident, but you have to help me fix it.” Sure bud.
Today was a good day. Activities were done, conversations happened, brains were expanded and TV was watched just a little bit less.