Doobie's Doings: Relax Bottle/Time Out Timer

Sooooo… I have a three-year-old little girl who is full of drama. Probably not the only one in history, but one of my current dilemmas. When time out time comes for bad behaviour I find myself with a little girl on the bottom step screaming, kicking walls and not able to even calm down enough to learn her lesson. This was getting worse and worse until I told my husband, “there has to be a better way, I’m going to research this.” So I went online and read other mom’s advice, dr’s advice, psychologist’s advice, etc. Nothing was really working. Finally I saw something called a mind jar. This was a mason jar filled with water, clear gel glue and ultra fine glitter. You shake it and the glitter settles slowly as you watch you relax. The original ones I saw were to teach children to meditate (not my goal). I loved the idea of getting Bella to focus on something else and relax. Then I saw on Pinterest that some moms were using it as a timer for time out also. Genius! So I didn’t have to watch the clock or set a timer, and it would calm my Bella. Well, I did not like that it was a glass jar (she is three, and who gives a three-year-old glass?).
So I found a water bottle (Smart water was the brand) that was totally smooth and not too big around for little hands to hold.

I removed the label with goo gone (it was very sticky under that label)

Next I filled each bottle with about 3/4 (* edit 5-3-12, I used hot water so that the glue “melted” better… room temp or cold will cause it to stay separate) water, an entire bottle of glitter glue and a small tube of ultra fine glitter. I kept playing with the mixture until the glitter settled at about 5 min. I added more clear gel glue to make it go slower or more water to make it settle faster. Then I had my sweet husband (who knows when I handle glue I tend to glue body parts together accidentally) to super glue the lids on. Another thing I didn’t like about the mind jars I saw, the mason jars were not glued shut and knowing my kids they would just open them and spill or drink them (glue and glitter… not something I want my kids drinking). Here are the finished jars.

Here is one settled and one in the beginning stages of settling…

Here is one of the bottle half settled at 2 1/2 minutes and the other totally settled. Sorry they are purple and pink, those are my girl’s favorite colors (right now) but you can make them with any color glitter. Boys blue or green ones would be really cute too.