100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 63: Stacking Cheerios

I've really enjoyed flipping through all of the activity ideas on Toddler Boredom Busters. Oliver is younger than her kids, so not all of the activities are appropriate for him. I'll save the site to go back to throughout the next couple of years. Today's activity, Stacking Cheerios, came from that website, and Oliver had a good time with it.

The activity set up is easy, and, if your house is like mine, you already have all of the supplies on hand. I took a glob of Play-Doh and stuck some pasta on it. I had angel hair pasta, and it worked fine, but spaghetti probably would be stronger (some broke during the activity, but it wasn't an issue). Then, I sat Oliver down and asked him to thread Cheerios onto the pasta. He jumped right into it!

After two or three minutes, he "mastered" the threading and then moved on to removing the pasta noodles and replacing them. I realized that I probably just should have let him do the pasta part initially. Some pasta noodles broke, and Oliver learned you can't just fix them.

After he re-situated all of the noodles, Oliver threaded more Cheerios. Then, it occurred to him that Cheerios are also for eating. He stopped playing and chowed down!

"Stacking Cheerios" didn't keep him entertained for all that long (maybe 15 minutes), but it was so easy to set up and clean up, that it was worth those 15 minutes of fun. Plus, I'm likely to always have the supplies on hand, so it's an activity we can easily do when boredom strikes. The ease of the activity makes it a good one, so I give this an A-.

He Only Eats Cheerios

Yes, Oliver has decided that he will only eat Cheerios with the occasional exception of some non-food items he's found on the floor. No, he will not eat bananas! He does not care if I mash them or carefully chop them into soliders and roll them in rice cereal for his little fingers to grasp. No, he will not eat steamed and pureed peas! Don't even think about giving him steamed carrot pieces or hunks of turkey dog. Oliver says no to almost everything...

...except Cheerios.

Cheerios it is then. I guess.

Pictured: For lunch, I tried to get Oliver to eat bananas. I even tossed a few Cheerios on the tray to get him going. He only ate the Cheerios. So, I took the Cheerios and mashed a little banana in the middle of them. He inspected them and began throwing them onto the floor. His message was clear: no bananas.