Spence is in a phase where he wakes up from his nap grumpy. Actually, it’s more than grumpy; it’s as if he’s having a night terror. He screams and yells and nothing I do can get him to calm down. Most days I end up letting him watch TV, and during those 15-30 minutes, he snaps out of it. I am trying to drop the nap, but there are some days when he’s simply exhausted and desperately needs those 45 minutes of shut-eye.
I found a blog post that demonstrated how to make “relax bottles.” There were tons of comments on how these mesmerizing toys calmed their children down and were a great tool for time out. (I found other sites with similar stories, too.) So today we bought all the materials to make them. I thought Saphira would be upset because Walmart didn’t have any pink or purple glitter glue, but luckily she happily chose “yellow” (ie, gold) instead. Spence, of course, wanted green. I wasn’t sure how the gold would look, so I picked up red to make a 3rd bottle. I figure I can give one of them away.
I also decided to experiment with a different water bottle. The Smart Water bottles are slim, but Saphira had trouble gripping it. So I bought one bottle slightly shorter, but with an indented section for gripping. Overall, they were extremely easy to make. Although, I must have done something slightly wrong because they take more than 5 minutes to settle completely. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll still serve their purpose. The true test will come tomorrow when the kids see them!
(The pictures in this post show the raw materials, the bottles just shaken and the bottles after 5 minutes, respectively.)
masteringmotherhood 
Neat project. I was telling K about them today, and he’s very excited to make one.