I'm a Slow Learner...

Since Benjamin was just a wee thing, we have gotten frustrated with each other over what makes for a "fun" activity.

Random coloring? Pshah. That would last like a minute and a half. Even now, his drawings are rushed and scribbly and he rarely wants to save anything. Sometimes, given a good idea, he gets into it... but it's rare.

Cooking? In addition to the fact that he hates messy hands, his attention span for this doesn't last longer than five minutes. (I always thought really messy hands type cooking was a hit with kids...not mine)

Painting? See above about the messy hands and the rushed drawings. He mostly likes to mix colors together and paint the paint cups, which is a good/educational/busy activity for a good while, but still...

Reading? For him, this is a night time activity and a general waste of good running around time during the day. He'll happily sit and look at books during the day of his own accord, but will NOT let me read to him.

We hit on a few winners with tactile stuff... he loves the rice box still, any kind of sand box, playdough, water play. But most days I am wracking my brain to keep him entertained and mostly just banging my head against a wall.

Part of the problem is that he is 100% my husband's genes as far as what he finds interesting. I'm reminded of it so often these days when I'm carrying on yet another conversation with him about countries, flags, capitals, continents, etc... my husband, his brothers and their grandfather can sit for hours discussing such things, in addition to other boring topics like English monarchies and very very VERY very very very detailed American History. (I stress the very detailed part, because I find History interesting... just not in QUITE the same depth that they do)They are all trivia storehouses of dates, Presidents, countries that have changed names, biggest oceans, smallest mountains, longest rivers, wars... you name it.

(snore)

Long story short, my husband's brain genes are obviously very strong. But I digress...

Today, I had a brilliant idea. Ben's newest addition to his obession list is flags. He knows the flags of a ridiculous number of countries... it's kind of nuts, but it's his thing, so whatever.

So we were on flags.net looking up flags he wanted to see... he asked me if planets had their own flags and I said no but then I thought for a moment... "Hey Ben! WAnt to make flags for the planets?" He jumped off the couch with an enthusiastic, "Yes!!! I'll do Jupiter! You do Mars!"

My jaw fell to the floor. This is the child who is rarely enthusiastic about any idea I put out there, so I knew I'd struck gold.

He colored happily with me for a good 40 minutes while we made our planet flags. (Then, little ocd perfectionist that he is, he got mad that he couldn't make his look like mine. Sigh.) He snatched mine and starting adding details I'd left off, like extra moons and Jupiter's red spot.

Still, all in all, a good idea and I felt like I was finally starting to GET him a little more. I mean, I honestly still don't really GET most of the things he's interested in, (I *am* enjoying the space phase because I love that stuff) but I think I'm starting to understand how his mind works... at least enough to be able to pinpoint things he might think are fun.

Seriously. This kid is, as they say, a tough crowd... it's one big letdown after another when I come up with what I think are fun ideas. I was walking on air this afternoon!