Visit at the drop-in centre

I took Benjamin to the local community drop-in centre today where he got a chance to play with some different toys and kids. This gives him an opportunity to burn some energy. It's getting increasingly challenging to keep him stimulated at home when the weather is crappy.

The drop-in centres are pretty good, and the staff is wonderful, but I have limited patience for all the plastic toys that accumulate there. I notice a distinct difference in Benjamin's level of concentration at places like that where the distractions around him prevent his full attention on a particular toy. Many times I see him trying to figure out how to open and close a certain door on something when he's distracted by a noise of some other toy a child nearby plays with. He usually abandons his trial-and-error play with the first toy to flit from here to there and back, playing with as many toys in as short a time as possible. He tends to do this less at home, and probably even less so at his Montessori daycare.

Like I said, these places are good for the odd visit. It gives Benjamin a chance to expend some built up energy and provides both of us with a change of scenery, and I quite like the circle time they do there.

To come up with some new ideas of how to stimulate my toddler, I took home a book from the library called Montessori Play and Learn by Lesley Britton. Some neat ideas in there. Must make some notes.

The only thing that irked me today (so far) was this guy who kept honking at me in the parking lot. Granted, I blocked the empty spot beside the one I was parked in, but I was trying to get the flippin' stroller strap loosened to make it fit around Benjamin's winter coat. So while I'm struggling with the strap, and Ben's trying to reach his snack over my arms, and the wind is blowing my hair into my eyes, the honking was really get on my nerves. Everytime I heard it I got more irritated which consequently hampered my progress with the strap. Finally, when I looked up and attempted to give the guy a dirty look, I noticed several empty parking spaces not two feet further to the left of us, and directly behind us. But no. He had to have THAT spot beside me. So I had to move.

He tried to explain to me later that this spot was the only one he could possibly use since blablabla something about an operation. Frankly, I wasn't interested in his excuses, and some of his words got lost in the wind. I just stormed off.

I did feel bad later for being so temperamental, but I'm trying to get over a bad mood here. And he could have parked elsewhere.