Soda Bottle Bowling Time

Toddler ages: 22 months, 22 months, 3.5 years

Materials you'll need:
-a number of empty plastic soda bottles (we used five)
-one or more balls

This idea seemed like a wonderful one....in theory. It might have gone better had I been a bit more flexible in my expectations.

Just lining up the "pins" was a labor of love, as the twins repeatedly knocked them down before I could ever get the fifth one up. Finally, after expending much patience, I suceeded...



The 3-year-old boy stood at the end of the "lane" and took his stance...



After knocking the pins down, he himself went to set them back up again...




...then ran back into position at the end of the lane...



After a few tries, he knocked them down again...



...and again...



This lasted for about 6 minutes. He then became weary and opted to bowl from a chair...



After deciding it was the twins' turn to bowl, the 3-year-old boy thought it would be best to surround the pins to keep them from scattering too far...



After only one attempt from each twin, things began to fall apart. The 3-year-old boy decided to lay on the bowling ball to get the 17-year-old boy's attention, (it didn't work)...



Twin B hid under the table and couldn't be coerced out for over ten minutes...



...and Twin A stayed within the confines of the wall and cabinet until the games were over...



As I said, in theory, this was a wonderful idea, and may very well work out for some of you, but this is one activity our family is going to save and try again a few months from now. Thanks for listening.