Stretch the Time With Your Kid and Play with Slime!

It annoys me when I find myself unable to come up with new activities to play with my kid. I mean, stuff like this is fun (see photo below) but after a while they get tiring, especially when your kid deliberately pulls the plant out after a few days:

He's 3 yo now, more energetic than ever, and I'm not getting any more creative so half the time he ends up playing with building blocks on his own or watching Thomas & Friends on my phone.

GETTING BORED LEADS to SCREEN TIME
It benefits me when he does that, because I get to work undisturbed, but it bugs me that he spends more than an hour on the screen and sometimes I feel like I've spent ages on my laptop too.

With all this technology, I feel we're disconnected and even when I take a break and spend time with him it doesn't feel enough to take back the time we lost.

For one thing he's getting bored with tracing and coloring now, and another thing I'm getting bored with LEGO and building blocks. 

He ends up doing the craziest things when he's bored. Obviously, we need something NEW. This weekend I went to the Philippine Homeschool Conference and visited their EXPO and I found THIS!

Named FLUB but I know is actually in reference to Flubber, this DIY SLIME saved me and my kid from the chain of boredom we experienced last week.

HOW to MAKE your OWN SLIME at HOME
The truth is I have seen plenty of DIY Slime Recipes online, here are two favorite videos, one is a recipe that uses borax:

This is one ingredient I have trouble getting because I don't know what the hell Borax is in the Philippines, if there's any equivalent, what the hell it's made of (I've researched but you don't just see this stuff at the Sari-Sari store, you know). So, for fellow clueless people like me, here's a different slime recipe that uses liquid starch:

There are tons more of recipes online with different measurements and they'r all doable requiring only 3 ingredients, at most. I have tried doing this plenty of times, took photos of it but always went wrong with One ingredient and I don't think I'll ever give it another go until I'm sure it's the right one.

Alternatives to Slime (You don't like Slime?? WHHYYYY??)

We have done our own Homemade Clay and it worked out well since there's no complicated ingredient involved, yeah that's right Borax this is all your fault! It's a better alternative to Slime if you're sensitive about safety, should your kid still have a habit of putting things in his mouth.

We've also had so much fun with our own Cloud Dough, which again is baby/toddler-safe compared to slime and has easier ingredients to get. I have not repeated this activity at home since we ran out of flour.

Ice Sensory Play is fun, especially during summer when your kid could use something cool to beat the heat. Unfortunately, Miggy has gotten over ice as playthings already and, after all, he makes way too much mess for his Lola to tolerate. So... moving forward to something new!

STRETCHING TIME WITH A FUN FUN SLIME
Thankfully, this DIY Slime I got had their Secret Ingredient prepared so I don't need to worry about messing it up.

The moment our slime formed, Miggy and I knew this is gonna be fun! We poked, plodded, tossed, smashed and squished the flubby little thing and instantly, whatever stress, worry or boredom we had it flopped away.

First of all we were both ENGROSSED with the Slime and the MANY DIFFERENT ways to play with it. Second, it's SOMETHING NEW so we are taking the time to explore it and don't feel bored at all.

Lastly, TIME STRETCHES when we're having fun and we are having fun so it doesn't feel at all like I'm just taking a few minutes off from work.

I also didn't feel bad at all that when I had to get back to work he's still playing, because slime play stimulates his creativity, his motor skills and his speech (he pretend-played turning a ball of slime into a Mike Wazowski)