"Snow" Box - Yucks?!

As promised, I got Sophie a huge plastic box for her sensory tub activity. This time, I remembered to put a mat on the floor for easy cleaning later. Instead of the usual materials like rice, beans or sand, I dug out the two tubes of artificial snow (bought 4 years ago) from the drawers and "got rid" of them finally! I thought it would be fun for Sophie to feel "snow" since we cannot experience winter here.



However, I forgot that the tub was way too huge to be filled up. Thus, there was only enough "snow" for one miserable corner of the box. Well, better than nothing I guess. Next I took out Sophie's Arctic animals figurines and placed them on the "snow". I thought Sophie would be thrilled to play with them. Hmm... I was quite wrong. She was clearly very uncomfortable and she refused to touch the "snow". In fact, I think she was trying to brush the "snow" off her figurines.



Determined to help her overcome her aversion towards the "snow", I buried the figurines deeper in it and pretended to call for her help to rescue them. I could see that she really wanted to "help" but the "snow" was too yucky for her. And when I held it in my hand, she was willing to trust me and touch it but again, she could not get used to how it felt.



Poor Sophie! She used the balloon as a “courage booster”. I was glad she did not just walk away and do something else. It meant that she was actually engaged in the activity and there was hope for her to eventually enjoy playing with the sensory tub. Either that, or she was obedient and wanted to do what I told her to… if she could overcome the aversion.



So I gave her a chopstick in hope that she would feel better and start looking for the hidden figurines. Even then, her reluctance was evident. I wanted to laugh! Ok, I was quite bad to laugh out loud but she was so funny! I think she just needs to do this a couple of times and she will eventually enjoy it.



Overall, I am happy that she recognised most of the animal figurines although she cannot say their names yet. She was eager to "rescue" them despite her aversion towards the "snow" so I guess it was a good sign. She has probably developed this aversion towards sand, salt, and "snow" etc because of me. Although I am not a clean/ hygenie/ neat freak, I try to avoid such elements. Oh well, we will have to do something about that...