Destructive Three Year Old

For the energy part, there's a place around here called Monkey Bizzness which is basically a little gym place with slides and jumpy castles and stuff but it's for toddlers. It's "fenced" in so the kids can run around w/o the parents worrying too much of them getting "loose". haha. Also there are seats for parents so they can sit in the enclosure and keep an eye on their kiddos. Here, there are $5 Tuesdays where it's open in the evening from 5-8pm. (other times I think it's mostly open weekend days for free play). It's a really great place (and actually fun for parents too as we're allowed to play on the equipment as well!). I would suggest you check out places like that near you where your dd can go to run around when it's cold out.

As far as other ideas for busy activities, can you get her some kind of 3-yo science kit for a birthday or something? I feel like one of our freinds has that and it's pretty benign. That way she can feel like she's doing "science experiments" but you know she's doing them in a less-destructive way. Or...you could always cover all the walls and furniture in plastic and give her paints LOL! I feel you though, as we've got a 4yo and she definitely gets rambunctious when she wants more attention. good luck!

My 30 month old son is JUST LIKE THAT - he is SOOO curious and busy and likes to "experiment" with everything. He also likes to do his variation of what his parents do (found him using the mop last month, on the christmas tree). Everytime we turn around he has broken something new. Sometimes, if he is in another room and you say, "What are you doing" he will holler back, "Making a mess."

He has a sand and water table in the backyard (which only has sand in it) which he will play in for hours. We also just bought him a backyard playhouse off of craigslist. Our back yard is fenced in, and we can see the whole backyard from our window, so we let him go out there by himself. He will spend 30-45 minutes or more at a time playing out there with the sandbox and other toys. We see him loading every toy into a wagon and pulling it, stacking every stick in the backyard into a pile, moving, carrying rocks... He keeps himself VERY busy out there.
Even when its cold or wet, we send him on out, if he wants to go. I just put a coat and rain boots on if its wet. He loves jumping in puddles. He'll come in if he gets cold enough and if he is too wet or dirty, I just change him.

I havent tried it yet, but I was thinking of letting him stand on a chair at the sink and wash potatoes with a scrub brush and water. He loves water!

I also let him use the swifter - we have both the wetbrush one and the swifter vaccuum. I had to teach him to keep it on the ground (still learning that lesson) but it keeps him busy.

I used to be ADAMENTLY against him watching any tv, or even having a TV on in the room, but I also have an 11 month old, and just couldnt keep up with him when she was smaller. When he saw me start to nurse her, he would run off! We now let him watch tv just to give us a break.

My 4 yr old boy is growing out of that, but it's still a struggle. Everything I gave him would end up wet or stepped on or torn apart! He's getting better. It's taken a lot of consistant stern discipline and I've taken his toys away many times. I make sure to praise him for keeping his toys "safe" when he doesn't break anything, My girl doesnt break things She like to sit and color. Is she into dolls yet? My girl will play independantly with her kitchen, dishes, and her dolls. She makes them dinner and puts them down for nap. We have a lot of tea parties. My boy plays cars, truck, and trains for hours. What we do to get the wiggles out is dance. I have toddler tunes on my cable box. We put that on and try to out-silly each other. Sometimes do 80s music or disco. It also helps to put them to work. I will put bins in the middle of the room and have them race to fill them up with toys, clothes, whatever needs to be picked up.

What about letting your daughter string beads and pasta? You can get a bag of beads pretty cheap from Walmart. Pasta is really easy because its cheap and it comes in so many sizes and shapes. You can even do colored pasta if you want to - just put the pasta in a ziploc bag with a tiny bit of alcohol and food coloring and then dump it on a paper towel to dry. She could make necklaces or simply string the beads/pasta and dump it back in a bag or container when she's done. Also, what about puzzles? I know you mentioned Duplos but what about some simple wooden blocks or cardboard blocks. She can see how high she can stack them up or she could build something with them and then knock over. Blank paper or coloring books and washable markers are great too (my daughter has alway preferred markers over crayons).

As far as getting the physical energy out, I got my daughter a Gymnic hop ball off of Amazon.com and she likes to bounce all over the house on it. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3... My daughter's 4 1/2 years old, about 41 inches tall and 37 pounds and she's got the Fantasy 18 inch ball (same as the Hop 45). It's especially great on rainy days and also when it's too cold to go out. The Gymnic hop balls come in all different sizes and are very thick and durable. I've seen a cheaper hop ball at Target but I don't think it's made nearly as well and it only comes in one size. Dancing is always great too.

I also agree that the places with the bounce houses are great. I took my daughter to one of our local bounce house places last weekend and she wore herself out so much that on our way home she had a hard time keeping her eyes open, which is unusual for her.

You can google arts and crafts for toddlers. There are tons of sites with projects - most are free, downloadable and many do not require a lot of supplies. For exercise - put on a CD and dance with her, try a mall with an indoor playland (all of ours have an indoor playground, are free and don't have the same awful volume of music and crummy food that those bounce places have - plus they're free), play simon says.