anything once: planning ahead for a toddler activity

I love doing activities with Eiley. We enjoy reading, looking at plants outside, singing, hanging out in the Eiley-sized pool in the backyard, playing games, etc. So maybe this first sounds like it's reaching, but it was a medium big deal to me because it required forethought. I mean, we went to a store, returned from the store, filled something with water, opened a freezer door, put something in the freezer. That's effort.

I'm starting to realize that this post is proving my lazy nature, but I am pressing on despite all of you judging me. 

Here's the activity, which I found by googling "art activities for babies":

1. Purchase popsicle molds. Really, this could work with straight up ice cubes, but the popsicle molds have handles so there's no risk of your kid getting frost bite or cranky. I bought mine at the 99 cents store. 

They look like little closed umbrellas!

2. Fill the popsicle molds with water and stick them in the freezer.

3. Once they're frozen, remove your ice pops, and use them to draw on the cement outside.

An alternate to this is putting Jello powder on a paper and letting your kid use the ice pop to make the color brighten on the paper, but that sounded like it would require clean up. I'm not that advanced yet.

Here's how it turned out:

1. Eiley enjoyed taking the pops out of the mold and putting them back in. Over and over and over.

2. Eiley and I both enjoyed feeding the ice pops to Buster. Can you imagine wearing a thick black sweater in 80 degree heat? We were happy to cool him off, and he thought he was sneaking a treat. Sucker.

Poor puppy!

3. I enjoyed writing on the ground with the ice pops, although the markings would evaporate in mere seconds. 

In conclusion, this was a simple, fun activity, even though Eiley in no way participated in the manner whatever website I found the idea on intended. And there was zero clean up. I suspect this first of planning ahead for a toddler activity is one I will repeat often in the next few years, and I'm cool with that.