As a working mother, my time spent with my baby was very important and what I made of that time was even more, I’d say, critical.
Let me tell you I was not a relaxed working mom who could let the child play with his toys while I read the newspaper. My time with my baby was sacrosanct. That’s because that time between 6-8.30 p.m. was all the time I had for him on a regular working day. I did feel very guilty leaving him every morning with the nanny. My nanny was quite sweet and caring, no doubt about that. But a mother is a mother and there is no replacement for her, at least in my view.
So in that limited 2.5 hour a day I had, I tried to give him my full undivided attention. When you reach home and see your baby, all your love comes gushing out and you want to drop everything to hug him tight, plant hundreds of kisses on him and cuddle him up. I listened to all his endless blabberings, I sang him our set of welcome rhymes and I carried him all around the house on my back. I tried to connect back with him every day. I wanted him to feel secure and I felt that my undivided love & attention played a very important role in providing that security to him. That mamma will be there for him when he needed her.
So I remember playing hide and seek as our very first game. The science behind being that when people go out of sight, they also come back in sight. I of course bought a good amount of age suited toys but those were kept mostly to be played when with the nanny.
When I was around I made sure it was more about talking, reading and role play. I think it’s the most important part of a child’s play and also that this part is too much to expect from the nanny, very frankly. So I was sometimes Mufasa from Lion king and he was Simba. He was the Very Hungry Caterpillar and I was Fruits and Leaves and I let him happily munch me while jumping all over me! He was the daddy and I the baby in On the Farm story. Needless to say, we read a lot many stories every day.
For me, it was all about DIY stuff when it came to activities. I found it less stressful as I didn’t have to run around buying things in the limited time I had in my 24 hour day. I could just Google or YouTube on what went along with my role play or story. If I wanted to do some motor skills, I would just take a handful of all sorts of pastas and color them differently in bright home shades.
He had so much fun seeing different shades of beetroot red and spinach green that I pureed with him for the food coloring. I think it got both mine and his creative juices flowing. We stuck those pastas to make interesting and curious crafts, beaded penne’s together to make garlands and when his little friends come over for play date, they felt so proud walking back with a little activity output that wasn’t from a box but from the kitchen.
I felt especially nice that we were using our own creativity to create endless hours of pure entertainment. We did a lot of such DIY activities to boost his creativity. As a matter of fact, I myself felt so energized after making something so simple. I felt especially nice about spending quality time with him without technically getting him hooked on to consumerism.
This article was first posted here
An Urban Nomadic 