House Arrest

Here's a list of Pudge-recommended activities to pursue in the name of entertainment when your brother's plague has you under house arrest.

1.  Go on a circle hunt with your mom. 

This was actually a proprioceptive input activity.  I hid specific circles upstairs and downstairs and intentionally put them at the end of tunnels, under heavy blankets, inside weighted buckets that she had to tip, etc.  Plus, she had to carry the bag of circle loot when we found one as we went up and down stairs, etc.

2.  Play with your light table.

We traced around the circles we found and cut them out of tissue paper.  Since we couldn't leave for contact paper, we just put the tissue between two pieces of waxed paper and ran over them with a warm iron to melt it all together and keep the tissue from being destroyed by Pudge. 

You can push circle rocks into bags of goop.

She did this FOREVER.  You couldn't see the color of the stones until she'd pushed them down and into direct contact with the light table.  She'd do a dramatic gasp every time the color was revealed.  Needless to say, the "how to impress pudge" threshold is shockingly low.

You can make lots of different sounds.

This activity was (obviously) Pudge-generated.  She dropped the bag of stones on the light table and LOVED the clatter of it all.  Then she dropped the bags of gel and stones intermittently for the next 10 minutes...sometimes just dropping...sometimes from different heights...sometimes slapping like a drum after they'd fallen.  Giggling like a lunatic the whole time. 

Light table play:  Visual, tactile and auditory sensory input

3.  Draw circles with markers.

The table is covered in face-down, excess Christmas wrapping paper from last year.  We were going to fingerpaint, but LC opted for markers instead.  She also opted to not follow my "No Sucking on Marker Tips" rule.

4.  Ignore your brother's 59th steroids-induced tantrum of the day.

Although cordially invited, Mr. Mood Swing opted not to participate in our activity and spent his energies trying to wreck the place instead.  Poor kid.  It's been a magical 24 hours.  Even the dog's ignoring his fits of rage at this point.

5.  And...above all...take whatever precautions are necessary to make sure your brother keeps his germies all to himself.