My Full Heart: Zoey’s First Sensory Bin

Zoey will be 8 months old next week. She is a really sweet baby and I’ve been looking forward to starting her Baby Boxes with her – sensory and fine motor activity trays geared to her age and skill level. Her skill level right now is grabbing, throwing, and mouthing things! 

Today was one of those days that seemed to drag on. First, my washing machine broke and I had to run to town and buy a brand-new washer. The delivery man was out of town, so Eli and a few of his friends went and picked it up for me and brought it home and hooked it up. In the middle of all of this, my husband got a call that the dryer at our rent house was not working, so we had to buy a new dryer for that house, too. Eli and his friends also delivered that dryer and hooked it up. Not the way I wanted to spend money today. 

While we were waiting for the boys to bring the washing machine, I decided to clean out the laundry room. I drug everything into the kid’s living room and then thought, what have I done? I threw away two bags of stuff and reorganized our craft supplies and toddler and preschool resources. That took a few hours and I was exhasted. Zoey also decided she was going to fight her nap all morning and afternoon. Fun.

My new printer came in (yay!) but I had a heck of a time trying to get it set up and tend to Zoey’s needs. I was getting a little frustrated. I was trying to cook spaghetti and decided to teach Titus how to cook it. He is ten years old so it’s time for him to start cooking. He was browning the meat and boiling the noodles. I asked him to dump the spaghetti sauce in the meat, but he misunderstood and dumped it into the boiling noodles. I had to bite my tongue and I’m glad I did because I almost said something I shouldn’t have to him. We went ahead and cooked the noodles, and they turned out fine. 

The house was a disaster. Food everywhere, sticky floors, dirty countertops, toys scattered…I stood by the sink and wanted to cry. Then I decided to reset the evening. I grabbed one of our deep, plastic tot trays and filled it with water. Then I added two plastic ducks and three plastic frogs. I set it outside on the porch and Zoey went to town with it! We had to refill the tray several times because she was splashing that water everywhere!

Big brother loves playing with Zoey.

She loves taking a bath and I knew she would love a simple water sensory tray. 

She was running her hands along the bottom of the tray.

She was mouthing the plastic toys.

She was sucking the water off of her fingers.

She was splashing and watching the water as it got all over everyone!

She was soaking wet, but she was happy. I was relaxed and happy. I let go of the stress of the day and the waiting messy house and just enjoyed watching her.

This is why I have activities like this. It relaxes the kids and me. It helps to reset our days. It passes time in a joyful way. It adjusted all of our attitudes.

This was the perfect first sensory bin for Zoey.