DIY Bowling Pins Project

My brain has turned to mush.

How do I know this? Two simple reasons.
1. It's one year to the day that I took a years leave to become main carer to my one year old son.
2. My son turns two tomorrow.

That sounds like I'm blaming him and in truth, I really am. It's okay though, he's totally unaware of it.
He's only two.

This past year has been an amazing one for me as a father and as a stay at home dad. I would have missed out on so much of my sons early development. In this last year alone I have seen my son take his first steps, speak his first words and learn (most of) the alphabet.
He can read numbers up to 10 and count slightly beyond that, although 12, 13, 14 & 15 all sound the same.
He has even cracked a few jokes, including a whole routine with a missing hand up a sleeve.

Throughout all of this I've been convinced he's a genius, not because he can do all of that before the age of 2 but because for a large chunk of that year, he's been pretty much the only other human I've been having conversations with. While I've always made a conscious effort to avoid any books with 'International Bestseller' on the cover, in favour of witty surreal novels with absurdist situations, I now find 'If I were a puppy...' and 'Animal Hide and Seek' completely unputdownable and quite surreal in their own way. Also, Thomas the Tank Engine is rarely off the TV. As a result, I can't remember the last time I saw real people talking (or doing so without liverpool accents.)

So forgive me if I think turning small recycled plastic water bottles into DIY Bowling Pins is a wonderous gift sent by the boredom angels.
The simple fact is this - my brain has turned to mush.

Image: Creative Dish

Creative Dish  has a great tutorial for the recycled water bottle bowling pins in the above photo.

If you are not too bothered about applying felt numbers to each bottle you can use the image below. Cut the circles out and apply to each bottle/bowling pin with a bit of glue or sellotape

All you really need is:
10 empty water bottles.
1 ball
You can print out the below sheet (for the placement of bottles on the floor)

Image: Clker

As mentioned, my son is turning two tomorrow and hopefully this eco friendly game will make a timely present and a fun way to play with numbers. It will be a nice change from all the whizz bang battery operated toys that get thrown from one end of the room to the other. However, I can't help but wonder then, if there is truth in the idiom, timing is everything.

I really do believe that everything happens as it was meant to happen. Either that or it's all just stupid chance. It reminds me of what Groucho Marx once said. "Those are my principles and if you don't like them...well, I have others"

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