William Carlos Williams once told us all that so much depends upon a Red Wheelbarrow. Well, at our house we don’t have one of those, but we do have a yellow picnic blanket. It has a pocket with a picture of palm trees on the front. It’s bright. It has windbreaker style material on the bottom so wet grass won’t soak through. It folds and zips up. It even has a strap to make it easy to carry. It’s a rare impulse buy with a purpose. At this point you may be wondering whether or not this is really an entire post about a picnic blanket. Why yes it is.
Let me tell you how much I love this thing. First of all, I’ve used it three times this week alone. It’s useful; this isn’t an item that just sits around the house so we look and feel like the type of family who would use a picnic blanket. I bring it to Tee Ball games because my three year old isn’t the type of child who can just sit in the stands. He’s a little guy who enjoys life best when he’s wallering around. Enter picnic blanket. It provides a designated space for him to do his thing and keeps me from having to annoy everyone around us by asking him to sit on pockets every thirty seconds.
We also use it for snacks outside
when the weather is too gorgeous to resist. It washes easily. The kids aren’t running around with food in their mouths, which I’m confident most parenting books would not recommend. Last week we had a watermelon picnic. I sliced the melon outside, they got to see how far they could spit the seeds, my kitchen stayed clean. Nice easy fun and great memories.
This morning we used the picnic blanket to play with water beads. I had no idea these even existed! They were an impulse buy that I didn’t resist. Basically they are these little plastic beads that you soak in water and they expand. As long as your kid isn’t still in the “let’s see how eating this goes” phase, these are also easy fun.
I set the water beads up on the blanket, brought out some toys (plastic tools, track for them to roll on, old kitchen utensils), and then just let the kids play. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how long they were occupied and all the different ways they found to play with the beads. Kitchen tongs became a T-Rex eating guppies, there was a cooking show at some point, and there was even an epic pink vs. blue water bead race along the track. These would also make great sensory toys as well. My kiddos say they feel like squishy eye balls. I imagine they would be tons of fun at a water play table!
The MVP of our house this week has been the picnic blanket. It’s become the staple that I set by the door and in these June days where plans to get out of the house rise up as suddenly as a temper tantrum, it has earned its own post.
Child Goose Chase 