It is no mystery that I am the mother of a very vibrant, exuberant, active, and sometimes stubborn toddler boy. He will be 2 in just over two months. I have my hands full.

I am a creative gal. I love crafts, being artsy, creativity, and imagination. So does my little man. Recently I turned a near tantrum in the middle of the store into a Secret Spy Mission! Like I said, he is creative too. His eye spotted the crayon aisle as I was looking for tape for wrapping gifts. I let him get a new box of washable crayons (we can never have too many of those around here) But he also wanted a new coloring book. Those on the other hand we have a major surplus of. If we were to run out of those we would still have 6 containers of 12×12 scrapbooking paper, plus many smaller sized paper packs! Paper is not lacking in this house. He didn’t need a new book, and Christmas is around the corner. I said no. Something I am trying to do more with things. I have a a soft spot for buying him stuff. It is bad of me, I know, and I have to try to teach him patience. I am working on it. So I stood firm. He was not too happy. The beginning of whining and a possible meltdown was showing up.

Suddenly, for reasons still unknown to me, I said “We are on a secret mission to find tape! That is all we need, tape, it is a super important secret mission to find it. Can you help me?”

He said “SPY!?!?!” (We watch  A LOT of Cars 2)

I said, “YES!!!! We are secret spies. Operation find tape has begun.” I went on and on. I even crouched down and little as if I were slinking around in a secretive manner. It worked. He forgot all about the coloring book. We found the tape, proceeded to the checkout, tantrum/meltdown free. I was blown away by his intelligence. He knew what my initial reference was. I don’t think I expected that. I was just trying to diffuse the situation. I was trying to talk about something, anything, other than that coloring  book.

Yesterday, I was trying to get us out the door for a trip to Michael’s, the craft store. I wanted to get some Christmas craft supplies, not for me, but for him. We did that with Halloween  and he learned all the major Halloween decoration/images/character names. He even knows the difference between a pumpkin and a gourd. I wanted to do that with Christmas items as well. Plus, craft time is fun. He put on his hat but didn’t want his coat. So out came the spy mission, the same response from him, he let me put his coat on, and we continued on our errand tantrum free.

He even got an out of this world spy treat from me. Do not worry, he didn’t even come close to finishing it! I knew he wouldn’t and most of the other candy was chocolate, which he hates, or sour gummy things, he also wouldn’t like. The giant sucker it was.

Mission accomplished! We had a big bag of crafts to do and he got some big loot!

Once we were home we worked on some of our crafts. One was a bust. These felt-ish Santas you  have to assemble. It said to use white glue, which I did, but it wouldn’t stick together for the life of me. We moved on. 2 year olds do not have patience for Santas that won’t stay together. We moved on to trees! Jack loves trees! And poofs. Plus I found some candy cane looking pipe cleaners. He knows what the candy cane pattern is already. So he loved those. I may have helped him a little with these, but we created them together. The trees were even on clearance at Michael’s. So were the poofs. We have many more blank trees to use and make fun things with. It was nice to sit down and make something together.

Poof/sticker/pipe cleaner Christmas trees

See the wrapping paper in the background? I actually wrapped an Amazon box in it to store the craft supplies. I did not have a spare empty basket around the house, they are all being used. I got creative, again, and decided to reuse a shipping box. It works perfectly for this. There is actually a ton of room left inside in case we find more Christmas craft supplies. I even told Jack he could decorate the outside with stickers if he wanted, you can see the gingerbread and Santa stickers on the right side of this photo.

Overall my creativity has been rampant this week. Starting with our impromptu Secret Spy Mission, then our craft supplies, rounding off with re-purposing a shipping box into a cute craft supply storage box. I wonder what the rest of the week will hold? We don’t have to go anywhere during the day today, so maybe we will get super crafty.

I do start teacher training again tonight! We had a break for Thanksgiving. I am excited to get out of the house, those tantrums have been frequent because he is still sick. I won’t go into it, but I am pretty stressed out. He will be better when he feels better, we have gone through this before. I am sorta of feeling better today, so hopefully he is too. Maybe my patience will be better with him since I am not feeling as sick. Regardless, I am looking forward to 3 hours of adult time tonight!