baby, it's cold outside

The weather has turned chilly, and I'm getting ready to hunker down and stay mostly indoors for the winter. Caleb just goes with the flow these days, but I'm not so sure that Garrett feels the same way I do about limiting our excursions in the great outdoors. Which means that I need to find ways to keep him happy and busy within the confines of our small apartment (read: I don't want him watching Chicken Run, his new favorite, over and over all winter long).

I don't have very many natural "preschool teacher" instincts, so creativity in this department is a little challenging for me. For the past few months, I've been keeping my eyes and ears open to different activity ideas that Garrett and I can do together indoors. One of my favorite resources has been my friend, Amy's, Serving Pink Lemonade blog. If you have young children at home, you should check out her great ideas of ways to spend quality time with them. Unfortunately my limited access to craft supplies somewhat inhibits my ability to take on a lot of her fun ideas (though rumor has it that a Michael's just opened up on Manhattan's Upper West Side, making it the first decent craft store in this city that is actually accessible to me, albeit still a bit of a trek from where I live). At any rate, here are some of the project and craft ideas I think we might be able to tackle:

• Make construction paper collages. Yesterday we made one of autumn leaves and hung it up on one of our white kitchen cupboards. Garrett enjoyed gluing the bits of paper so much and was so proud to see his artwork hanging up that I think we'll make more. I'm envisioning pasting face pieces on a jack-o-lantern for Halloween, ornaments on a tree for Christmas, snowflakes for winter, hearts for Valentine's Day, shamrocks for...well, I think you get the idea.
  
• In the same vein, we could glue macaroni on paper plates. My youngest sister once created the life cycle of a butterfly using four different pasta shapes. I always liked that school project of hers; maybe Garrett could make one, too.
  
• Make bean shakers.
  
• Make cereal necklaces. Garrett [sort of] helped my mom make some during her visit. They were more fun for him to eat than to make, but I'm willing to give these a second try.
  
• We could finger paint.
• Or hang butcher paper up on the wall for him to color on.
  
• And then there's always the playdough option, which we could make and then play with. Or we could just buy some and play with that.
  

I'm assuming (or is that hoping?) that there will be some nice-ish days this winter, and on those, if I'm feeling brave enough (public transportation is still incredibly daunting with these two little time bombs I gave birth to), perhaps we could venture on one of these outings:

• The Brooklyn Children's Museum. They have occasional free hours, which is a definite plus.
  
• Or we could go to the Children's Museum of Manhattan. They also have some free hours, though they are more limited.
  
• Garrett loved the Transit Museum, so we could always go back for another visit.
• He also can't seem to get enough of the animal exhibits at the Museum of Natural History.
• If he's being a good boy (and I have a bit of pocket change) we could stop in for a treat at our local cupcake bakery.
• Of course, there's always Storytime at the library every Wednesday.
• If the weather is abnormally decent, we could visit the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (on a Tuesday, when it's free) and, while we're in the neighborhood, we could take a ride on the carousel in Prospect Park.
• I've always wanted to go to the Museum of the City of New York. They apparently have an ongoing exhibit called New York Toy Stories, which is -- you guessed it -- a collection of toys owned or made by New Yorkers.

Other things I've thought of that we can do while we're puttering around the house:

• The Fisher Price website has free online computer games that Garrett has enjoyed in the past. He always loves an excuse to play on the computer, so I might as well make it educational, right?
  
• Or we could lounge around watching YouTube videos. He LOVES YouTube. It doesn't matter what the video is, he gets a real kick out of sitting on my lap staring at the screen. There seems to be a good supply of Sesame Street segments available to stream.
  
• Building a fort out of blankets kept us occupied on a few cold days last winter, so we'll probably do that again. Only this time it'll be much cooler because we'll have a bunk bed at our disposal.
  
• Garrett loves to work his special magic in the kitchen, so I'm sure some afternoons will be spent baking.

This might be enough to keep us busy for a while. But then again, Garrett's world is incredibly fast paced, so for all I know, this could only get us through mid-December. And so I turn to you, my ever-helpful readers. As far as I'm aware, most, if not all, of you have experience with toddlers, and it is to you that I am going to solicit some brainstorming help.

• Do you have any suggestions of activities I could add to my list?
• What about resources, online or printed, that I coud look to for more ideas?
• And this isn't exactly brainstorming help, but do any of my fellow Brooklynites want to join me in any of the above-listed endeavors? It's more fun to be cooped up inside if you've got good company to be cooped up with.