Playing on Those Stir-Crazy Days

Today was one of those days when I was going stir-crazy. I think my daughter was, too. The air quality is too unhealthy to be outside, and we don’t seem to know what to do with ourselves all day in the house. She started getting into my stuff, I reacted, she reacted, I reacted some more. I wanted a change of pace.

A dollhouse, I thought. That’s what she needs. Then we can get out the peg people, and she can play happily for an hour.

After a quick internet search, I decided I didn’t want to spend money to buy one today and would instead make one from cardboard with this tutorial.

I got out a big cardboard box and a box cutter and set to work. My daughter immediately wanted to know what I was making, but I didn’t tell her right away, hoping she would guess. After I had cut away the cardboard to make the shape of the house, she guessed a cat box, so I told her it was a dollhouse.

She helped with gluing for a few minutes, but then she found cardboard triangles I had cut off the box and asked me to duct tape them together. Soon she was flapping them while running around the house and shouting that they were bat wings! This actually went on for a good while, until I had all the “wallpaper” and “flooring” done in the house. That’s when she tried to curl up like a cat inside the house and was deeply disappointed that she didn’t fit.

My unfinished dollhouse

The bat wings were more fun than the dollhouse.

And that’s okay! Children need to direct their own play to develop their creativity and their will, so I’m glad she ran around with homemade bat wings even though the dollhouse was a bust, for now at least.

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