Cabin Fever.

If you live south of the Mason-Dixon line with a small child, you've probably had cabin fever this past week.  We have!  (If you're from the north, you're probably either (a) way more willing to be outside with ice on the ground or (b) way more creative at passing the hours inside.)  Though snow and ice is exciting in theory, it's totally overrated (just like New Year's Eve). 

One note about Fawn -- he's all boy.  He loves to be outside, running around, getting dirty and sweaty.  Basically he's Buck minus 3 feet, 140 pounds, and 28 years.  So, generally Mommy saying it's too cold to go outside just doesn't cut it.  After one "hike" through the snow and ice to the cul-de-sac at the end of our street, though, even Fawn was ready to put back on his pjs and call it a day.

So, what did we do?  Nope, no Thomas the Train, Curious George, Handy Manny for us (though I'm definitely not opposed to some PBS Kids or Playhouse Disney).  We played -- and we had a ball.  Here's some of the fun we had to pass the hours while the southern sun attempted to melt the snow.

Art, art, art.  We magnadoodled (yes, it's a verb), played with playdough (put it in your big pyrex dishes moms -- keeps it contained and super-easy to wash), drew with crayons, markers, and the all-time favorite dry erase markers.  We even used our dry erase markers to work on our letters (we made it through A, B, and C before Fawn decided enough with the education).  Don't worry though, we did N yesterday.  Only 22 letters to go!

(As a disclaimer, I am not a professional photographer and I have no desire to be one.  If you are looking for a photography blog, keep looking.  I'm a mom -- and while my subject is as cute as they come, most of the time I am simply trying to capture a moment before it disappears.)

Then it was on to money -- pennies for Fawn's piggy bank.  I give Fawn all of the pennies I receive as change.  I've found it's a great way to keep my wallet cleaned out, get some small motor exercise for Fawn's fingers, and practice counting (really just to keep my wallet cleaned out -- but the others are good too, right?).  And Fawn loves it -- "more monies mommy."

When we were out of pennies, we moved on to puzzles.  To spice things up a bit, I dumped all of Fawn's puzzle pieces into a box and we made it a game to sort the puzzle pieces into their correct piles and then put the puzzles together.  We only have four puzzles, so this didn't take too long.  But, Fawn loved it and has already requested a repeat of this activity.

Since we still had not made it to nap time, I broke down to Fawn's request for his fishing pole.  While there is a creek in our backyard -- there are no fish (and it's freezing people!).  So, we "fished" over our banister.  We fished, and we fished, and we fished.  We got the fishing line tangled (to the point of a near meltdown) -- but we kept fishing.  And, you know what?  The orange plastic fish tied to the end of the fishing pole kept getting caught.  Too bad for him, pure excitement for an almost two-year old.

Ten minutes of mommy yoga later (though it's hard to concentrate on warrior pose when you're being tackled by 23 pounds of energy) and it was time for lunch and nap.  Fawn slept well -- I guess even the boring indoors can tire him out.