Baking cake

Joseph is a very active boy. He always wants to do something. Always wants to discover something. This can be rather exhausting because he figures he has discovered everything there is to discover already about this house and the big yard. At least anything that he is allowed to discover. Therefor, he wants to go 'out' every single day. I try to keep some activities every week: go to the playground, go to the childrens museum, go to the store... just.. go.
But he needs to learn how to be content at home too. He has enough toys. He has a big yard. He has creative toys. And he is allowed a certain degree of freedom as well as responsibility.
One of the problems for me is always to try and think of new activities. I keep trying to go back to the old reliables like colouring (which still doesn't interest him for more than two minutes) or fishing or puzzling. But they just don't seem to capture his interest for a long time. Not even when I sit right next to him to play along. He tries to entertain himself more and more, by digging into daddy's toolkit (that boy is going to be an engineer!) or by dragging sixteen books to mommy to read. (But sitting still at Story Time at the library, forget about it!).

Anyhow, I am often at my wits end as to how I should keep him from general destruction. He never is deliberately destructive, just insationably curious. And while I am strict on the things to which I do say no, I do not want to say no all the time.
So today, I had the idea of baking cake. While a bit more of the batter landed in Josephs mouth than I had wanted or predicted, in general, it went very well. I think we may make cake (or cookies) once a week. It is great fun to hear him name the ingredients. The trouble is going back and forth to the fridge while he is within reach of the bowl and thus can get into the batter and stuff some in his face (or on the table, or on his clothes). Still, there was not too much damage done, clothes can be washed and we both had great fun. I do think it is important that he learns how to help from an early age. And won't it be fun for daddy to come home to some cake baked by his big boy and mama? Well... hmmm.. that is, if there is any cake left by then.