What Grandmas do for their grand kids
 

My daughter is coming up in about 10 days so we can all celebrate her oldest girls 7 year old birthday. When they were here a month ago I got out the sprinkler. The oldest has always enjoyed it but the little one was terrified. She will be two in November. So we found this small pool in this weeks Target add. It has this giraffe that you can hook the hose up to it and a small detachable slide. What I liked most was that it was small and I didn't think the little one would be intimidated with it. But you have to blow it up:eek: So off and on all day long I got that thing out and blew it up. My husband felt sorry for me and took over for awhile when he got home from work. But it's a cute little thing. I have it downstairs in the family room. Their bedroom is right off the family room and I figured I would leave it set up down there and she could play in it there for awhile before we take it outside.

Then my daughter called me today and the other Grandma decided they needed a pool outside! So she bought them a 15 ft by 42 ft, 3 1/2 ft high pool! Oh well, I thought I was doing a good thing. So I guess for birthday presents I guess we need to get them all sorts of things for a pool. I think I'll go to Walmart's bakery and see if they have some kind of swimming pool type birthday cake.

Holy cow! :eek: That's as big as my house!!!

Sorry for your disappointment. Maybe fill it with sand and get some shovels and pails?

I think you have a good idea about the b-day cake; hope they appreciate it! :hug:

Remember how a box from a large appliance can be so much fun? Your little pool set up inside may be just as fun, just different from the big pool.

Here is an idea...whacky as it may sound. When you go to Walmart, buy a bunch of jello and fill the small pool with it. How crazy. Your 7 year old granddaughter may never forget the experience.

Or mud on the last day. Our city has a huge day for kids every year called Mud Mania. It is a big obstacle course of mud. A small pool of mud, a big mess but getting dirty and photos to last a lifetime.

Or do both, one on the second to the last day and the mud on the final day of play.

A little pool, a big experience.

Just a thought...

*visualizing Cyn as a muddy youngster*

Hmmmm, I'll bet you were quite the handful! My sympathies to your folks! :D

Doydie - What a wonderful and thoughtful Grandma you are. Regardless of the "big" pool the shear fact that you blew that up amazes me. I appreciate your efforts.

Aarcyn has some awesome ideas. Use the little pool for something else that will create lasting memories. Your GD will always remember her 7th birthday when her Grandma took the pool and . . . .

Sending you lots of cyber:hug:'s and let us know how it goes and what you decide to do.

I saw that pool in the ad and thought it was adorable!

Regardless how big the other pool is, how can it be as cute? Kids your DGD's age aren't into that kind of competition anyway. I'd bet she is amazed there was a pool at both Grandma's houses and wonders if you conspired together on that one.

;)

Kids love grandmas because they are grandmas, not because of the size or price of the gifts.

As for Walmart bakery... my 2 yr old DGD loves DorA Explorer. I bought the cake deco's for $5 at their bakery and made my own cake (saved a few bucks). My DD does not eat cakes with eggs, so I could make the cake special for her, save money, and still decorate for the baby.

And the baby LOVED the Dora theme.

birthday breakfast
 

Both my kids had the best preschool teacher through our local parks and recreation program. She did some really special activities, one was cooking.

In your local grocery store, look in the area that sells cornbread mixes in a box. The smallest box is a brand called Jiffy. On the side of the box is a recipe for corn pancakes. The GK's will love them.

Years upon years later now, those pancakes are still a favorite in our house.

one more idea
 

Since the GK's will be there for 10 days, here is a fun cooking experience. This was also done in preschool.

Cookies for Creative Kids

Ingredients:

1 pkg. yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 C. flour
1/2 C. oil
chocolate pieces, peanut butter chips or raisins or any requested combination. Whatever they like in their cookies!

Recipe: Mix together cake mix, eggs, flour, and oil. Cookie consistency will be alot like play dough. Give a 3 inch ball of dough to each child. Let child mold and decorate cookie with peanut butter chips or raisins or both. Cookie does not have to be flat and round to taste great, but encourage a little flatness. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

A big pool might scare that little one. Her own "safe" pool with her owngiraffe and her slide may be preferred. Seven, well that's different but the other one is little. If a sprinkler is scary, 7-year old sister splashing can't be fun!!

For the 7 year old - Noodles. neat towel, kid-size lounge or chair, rings. I've even seen little swimming fish (batteries) for pools. A box of neat stuff!!!!

last one
 

I promise to stop here. I am getting annoying.

Doilies and water-proof markers. I loved coloring doilies, so did my kids.

While they are in your house, scotch tape them all over a room. Let the kids pick the places in the room. Nothing says love like displaying "artwork." They can come down once they leave.

enough is enough.

I think the small one will be fun also! Heck! I would rather play in it myself!

:hug:

3" of water and a ridiculous number of little plastic toys from the dollar store will amuse her for hours. The bags of animals, letters, dollies, etc. will shock and amaze her. A few buckets or cups are always great, too. Add a few drops of food coloring to the water to add to the fun and let her pick the color each day, she'll enjoy stirring the color drops into the water.

Bigger kids love shaving cream hairdos (followed by the infamous arctic shower) and scavenger hunts, races like kick-the-can or relays. Beanbag or ball toss games are great. Water balloon toss is a blast, but make them swear the oath of clean-up before they get their hands on 'em!

Acting out story books is fun for kids too, simple stories like 3 little pigs or red ridinghood can be terrific sources for the comedians in them and give grammy a rest. ;)

Paper grocery bag cowboys and indians costumes are a riot too.

Just remember, Doyd, the best memories come from the doing with each other, not the stuff with which you made the memories.;)

I don't know about Doydie, but you guys are making this Grandmama, tired..:eek: Blowing up the pool was hard enough.

The pool and a bucket of water toys sounds like wonderful fun for all. Grandma & Grandpa can just sit back a watch..:D

Wheeeeeee!!!! :Trapeze 2:

Are we talking more then one day of play here?

Say....

How about "Birdseed"? Play with it like sand and make peanut butter bird feeders and the rest when you are done is still for the birds.

How about "Goop"? Mix cornstarch and water to a thin mix and play away. The great thing about goop is when it gets on anything (clothes, floor) and dries, it goes back to powder.

How about "Pudding"? Make pudding together and fingerpaint with it or make "Dirt Pudding Cups".

Oh...

How about "Masking Tape"? Make roads on the floor with the tape and run cars around on the tape. I like tape as you may know.:D

I wanna come play with you!:hissyfit:

muddy as a youngster, im tying my best not to think about it as an adult:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

i like the sandbox idea, i say set it up she may enjoy it a lot let her play on the slide and all

we always had a big pool but we also always enjoyed the sprinkler, so ya never know

Kicker had a good point about a smaller pool being small-kid friendly.

My granbaby only has our big pool so she doesn't know any different, but I can tell you it gets OLD holding her because she hates wearing her life jacket. We got her one of those swimsuits with the floaty built in, and she hates that too.

:rolleyes:

She'll sit on the raft a lot, thank goodness.

But the big thrill is toys. Pool noodles - how did I forget?

:eek:

Toy boats!!!

Rubber duck!!!

Beach ball!!!

Cool shades!!!

She's still the age for bubbles and sidewalk chalk too.

Little kids are cool cuz they are so easy to please with cheap fun.

One of my favorite things when I was a kid was draping blankets over a table and making forts and houses or what ever you wanted them to be. My sister and I both wanted to be nurses. She was 18 months older than I and we had a lot of fun. We had an old garage that wasn't worth putting a car in. So Dad built us a hospital. He made a life size patient out of wood and had all the joints on hinges so they could move and we would have splints and everyhting on poor Herman. But I guess our favorite thing to do with Dad was that once a summer we would go camping in our back yard. Mom would help us put a blanket on one side of the fence so we had 1/2 of a pup tent. We made Dad a full one. We even dug little holes in the backyard so we could put out leftovers in them. Back in the 1950's you had to create your own fun cause you didn't have money to buy any.

I don't know where my brain was when I wrote the size of the swimming pool the other Grandma is getting my daughter! It's 15 ft in diameter and 3 1/2 feet deep. I don't know where I got this 42 feet thing. That wouldn't even fit in their back yard much less it would take all summer long putting water in it. But hers is 15 ft and mine is 5 ft! But mine stays here. The kids don't come here that much and we will get a bigger pool next year. I also would love to get a swingset.

When DDs were close to your GDs age, I took my yearly week vacation right before school started. I never had money to really go anywhere so I had to be creative during these vacations. One year we went on a "cruise." I asked the girls what countries they would like to visit. I then went to the library during my lunch break at work and got books about the country and searched the internet as well.

In the morning of that week, we would have breakfast and look at the map and books about the things that we would see in that country. Then we would go to the cruise ship (the pool) and begin our cruise. We would talk about sea life. Regardless of where we were DD18 always "saw" dolphins. LOL. After swimming was lunch and nap and then some sort of art project related to the country of the day and then I would cook an ethnic meal from that country.

DDs loved it and still remember it today. Not only did we have fun using our imaginations but they learned about different countries.

Kids love themed parties. You can even have them dress up. Since you have a safari type pool, a safari theme party would be perfect.