Use white glue and spaghetti noodles to make spider webs on wax paper. (Bonus timekiller: the insatiable little omnivores will expend countless minutes crunching.)
Scissors up some snowflakes (icicles for the less competent) and brainstorm (brainblizzard) winter words to write on them. Turn children loose with scotch tape to hone interior design skills.
Fill the tub with kids, scrub brushes, and Duplos (or the veggies that need to be washed for supper tonight :D ).
Check your watch. Belatedly remember resolving not to check your watch.
Get out the cheapo white paper plates (run over to church and steal some if you don’t have any). Punch holes, weave yarn, get out your maps, and create murals depicting what people in [warm region of your choice] are doing right now.
Check weather again. Yup. Sheol is still proverbially polar-capped. No hope of getting out.
Rearrange the furniture. Particularly useful if you have a creeper/crawler/cruiser who’s into everything. Make him a nice corral and email a picture of him in it to the grandparents. Maybe they’ll get the hint and plan a visit ;-)
Call relatives who are living or visiting in The South. Realize that this is not necessarily helpful, because 1) when they don’t pick up you begin to imagine them at the beach, unable to hear the phone over the sounds of the surf, and 2) the sight of the phone in your hand triggers the kids’ Rotten Reflex.
Use warm soapy rag-socks to scrub the walls and cabinets. Something might get cleaner, or else they’ll wander off to occupy themselves. Either way, you win.
Give them plastic knives to cut bananas for their peanut butter sandwiches. Throw nutrition to the gusting wind and let them put mini marshmallows on the sandwich too. Justify it as a counting exercise.
Begin weeping in earnest when you realize that it’s only 1:00--The Time Formerly Used for Naps.
Abandon the monsters to their own devices, get online, and post all of your brilliant ideas here to inspire the rest of us. Please.
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8 comments:
1. Dress children in swim suits, fill large buckets with warm-hot water with about a cup of white vinegar in it and set them loose in the kitchen-or any other area that's not carpeted (unless you need a free shampoo in that juice stained living room) and let them go wild "scrubbing" the floor. Afterwards give them towels for drying everything and then plop them in the living room with mounds of blankets and comforters to make a huge "nest" and read them a few books. Nap time may soon reappear :D
2. Sit children at kitchen table and give each child a large dollop of shaving cream. Let them smear it out and draw to their heart's content with their fingers.
3. Take a piece of paper and fold in half length wise. Open paper and let older children put little dollops of paint on one side of fold. Close paper and smear paint from the fold out and then re-open. Beautiful paintings with bonus of lesson on symmentry.
5. Get tons of marbles and let older children sit in a hallway. Close all doors in hallway and put rolled up towels in the cracks so marbles dont make it into the rooms. Then let them go crazy rolling the marbles or playing "marble golf" into tipped over cups.
6. Dye large amounts of white rice:
http://thebubblefarm.blogspot.com/2006/01/pasta-and-rice-dye.html
and then fill a large tupperware storage bin (one of the long short ones) with the rice. Fill with beach toys, cups, spoons, etc and put down a tarp or sheet. Let the kids go nuts. Can combine with a lesson on dye and how it's made.
7. Let your children pour through recipe books that have pictures and pick out one recipe each that they would like to learn to make. Send your husband out in the cold to get the groceries and plan cooking lessons for each child.
8. lock yourself in the bathroom in a tub of hot water with a good book after switching the locks on your childrens' doors so that the lock is on the outside. :D
You ladies are very clever! I just need to throw caution to the wind and get a little messy, I guess!
Reb. Mary- I like the soapy sock idea...I think I've included my toddler a few too many times in the house cleaning, that it isn't fun and novel anymore...however, combining it with a soapy sock might just be the key!=)
Wow. Amazing. You're good moms.
I usually just send them to the basement with the injunction, "If I hear any crying, you're all scrubbing the toilet with your toothbrushes."
I'm with Gauntlets...just not creative!
We did a lot of cooking today. First we made chocolate chip banana bread, which we devoured for lunch. Once the baby was napping, we broke out the gummy bug kit that was given to us. The boys found it fun to make, gross to eat. Then we made pudding pops, and they are playing Indiana Jones.
I'll have to use some of those tips tomorrow if school is still closed. Although I'm thinking about super-bundling up and going to the mall so they can play in the playplace. Is that bad?
Is popcorn and movies pure evil? Even Blue's Clues and Veggie Tales?
Melanie: Good stuff :)
Marie: Mess is the stuff of which my life is made :O
Guantlets: Don't think that dire threats and the basement don't have their place around here :D
Dakotapam: It's desperation, not creativity. ;)
EZEM: Cooking is one of our favorite diversions too, which I resort to when I'm up to dealing with "Is it tasting time yet? Is it? Is it? Is it tasting time yet?" I admire those with endless patience for their kitchen helpers. :P
Joy: Sometimes, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. ;)
Good golly. Way to overachieve.
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