Activity: Bubble Wrap

I am a closet "green" person hiding inside a parent's body. What I mean by that is before I became a mom, I cringed at the concept of waste and excess. However, since birthing my daughter I have at times let a lot of things go (we use a LOT of baby wipes in this house) and had to cope with the ridiculous amounts of product packaging that now enter our house wrapped children's goods.

I recently purchased a giant vase that the store wrapped in matching giant bubble wrap so I could get it home safely. Not the throw-in-your-recycling-bin kind that Crate & Barrel would give you (darn right I provided that link - they have great stuff and you can recycle ALL of their shipping materials), but the awful landfill-clogging kind.

So we were at least going to use it again after my vase safely made it to my house. Enter my toddler!!

Once she figured out where the crazy popping noise was coming from, she was hooked. Her little fingers and lack of upper body strength prevented her from being able to pop each bubble on her own, but that didn't stop her from trying. She was fascinated with touching each one as I popped it for her. And then she quickly ran away so she could bring back some of her little dishes, and before I knew it we were having a bubble wrap picnic. And her little heels and tailbone would surprise us here and there by popping bubbles on their own, which made her giggle. 

Anything to make my kid giggle!

Obviously, this is a supervised activity - but have fun with it if you have some bubble wrap crammed in a corner somewhere!