SICK AND TIRED
It's that time of the year. Colds, flus and strep - oh my! If one child is well, the other is sure to be sick. If both children are well, that means Mom and/or Dad are walking around in a cold medicine daze.

If your toddler is sick enough to be subdued, count yourself lucky. It's that in-between stage of "not really well but just sick enough to be in a bad mood" that usually hits my family. What can you do with a kid who is too sick to run around in the yard but not sick enough to forget how to whine and throw temper tantrums? You keep him so busy with quiet activities that he forgets he is unhappy!

If you are trying to keep your child in bed, activities that have a prize attached are more likely to keep his attention. Get an empty egg carton and a bag of M&Ms. Depending on the age of your toddler, you can group the candies together by color or put a specific number of candies in each indentation. You can also make a game of it where they have to answer questions to get an M&M, which they then must collect in the appropriate indentation. The great thing about this activity is that you get to eat the results!

Another bed rest activity is finger puppets. First read your toddler's favorite book to him, or you can surprise him with a new book. A few good ones that lend themselves to finger puppets are "My Life With the Wave" by Catherine Cowan and Octavio Paz, illustrated by Mark Buehner, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle, and "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.

To make finger puppets you need some felt, yarn, glue, markers, scissors, and cardstock paper. To make felt finger puppets, trace your child's finger onto the felt, making sure to leave plenty of room. Cut this out, or let him if he is of an appropriate age or if he feels that he is at an appropriate age and you just don't feel like fighting about it. Then make another identical one. You can then stitch up the sides using color coordinated thread and a perfect sewing stitch, and then send your beautiful creation to Martha Stewart to showcase on her talk show. She might even ask you to be a guest! However, if you are an average mom who knows that finding a needle in your house is about as easy as finding a needle in a haystack, you can do what I do and just glue the sides together!

If your child is frequently sick or has been sick for awhile and you've had time to plan ahead (my condolences to you), you can get some googly eyes to glue on. Hopefully this is a temporary setback for your energetic angel and you won't be that organized. In that case, have them draw eyes or whatever the person or animal needs. For finger puppets to reenact "My Life With the Wave," you will need a mom, a dad, a boy, and a wave. The mom, dad and boy are pretty easy with the felt. You can add yarn for the hair, or just draw it on for the males, unless of course you envision the father as a Fabio kind of guy, in which case you will need a flowing mane of honey-colored locks.

For the wave you might consider using the cardstock. Figure out how large your child would like the wave to be, then have him draw it on the card stock. When cutting out the wave, add a long rectangle that extends about one inch on each side to the bottom of the wave. This part will be wrapped around your child's finger and glued where appropriate in order to fit snuggly but with enough room to slide on and off.

Your child can also create backdrops for his story with the cardstock by drawing different scenes from the book. Encourage your child to use his imagination to create scenes not contained in the book. If the fever has robbed him of his imagination, or if he is at that age where he perceives that any idea you have must have come from the devil, let him copy scenes directly from the book.

Let your child put on his own "Masterpiece Theatre" for you, playing out the story in the book and coming up with new endings or new chapters. Once your little one is up scampering about you can put your little felt playhouse away until the next bout. It's only November - cold

season has just begun. I