Bored Children

I have discovered possibly the most entertaining reality show of all time; a toddler and a five year old bored with summer, trying to entertain themselves without adult or sibling assistance. 

First, there was the lounging on the floor, draping of the limbs to illustrate how tragic and difficult this state of life was for their spirits.  Failing to gain sympathy or even much of a response, one tucked herself into a laundry basket while the other took solace in scooting across the floor in a laundry bag.  The end of round one resulted in a ripped laundry bag.

The three year old thought her brother's antics annoying and proceeded to make a mad face.  When we laughed at her mad face, she devoted all of her thinking to how to make her face madder still.  She pursed her lips and shut her eyes to illustrate how much more irritation she felt.  They traded faces for a time but to render the impact of their mad faces better, they stood up and looked up whenever the other volleyed a new face.  This led to them marching in a circle in the living room with their eyes perpetually glued to the ceiling.  Thus, they became dizzy, ending round two. 

By now, united in their sufferings, they climbed onto the piano to engage in an improv John Cage type duet, but that switched to a turn taking with each child singing to their creation and the other wrapping themselves up like a sausage in a pink blanket.  Round three.

Round 4, they pretended to be sleeping, complete with snoring sounds.

Round 5, a laughing contest, who could be loudest, it morphed into stomping, screaming and sometimes hitting the ivories with vigor.  

Round 6.  Anna pretends to be a cat snoring, draped across the piano bench.   Paul tries to restart the laughing contest, but also lays down to try to snore.  I sneezed which made the snoring cat stop to say, "Bless you." breaking character and apparently making everything hilarious.

Round 7.  Earthworms.  Without using their hands or feet, they squirm, roll and crawl across the floor.

Round 8.  The sleeping cat is back and Paul doesn't like this game so he wants a different one.  Wake up Anna might prove to end the pleasant play of the morning so as ref of this contest of titan toddlers, I think about breaking it up.  But Anna has solved the problem herself until he grabs her feet to hold.

Round 9.  There's a double knock out.  Pretending to sleep has created to actual sleepers. 

Ding ding ding ding ding!  The Battle is over!  I WIN!



One week until school starts. 



They may have been bored, I on the other hand, was highly entertained. 

It's summer, but you can't end summer until you've had days that drag by like syrup and result in competitions to stave off the boredom of an unstructured day.

If I Flunk Summer, It Won't be for Lack of Effort!

Every year, I take my kids out to lunch at the beginning of June and we make a list. It’s an ambitious selection of activities, some of which we hope to accomplish in the 90 days that seem to stretch out before us with endless tantalizing possibilities on that last day of school. We usually have pick berries, baseball, cook out, camping, amusement park and go to the movies, along with more excentric possibilities like the Circus, salt water fishing, flying somewhere, and horseback riding.

Last week was Memorial Day, the official start of summer.

We spent that long weekend in the hospital. This week, we’ve upped the ante by paying a visit to the department of Motor Vehicles two days in a row, followed by a physical for two of the girls and a protracted stay on hold for the Cable guy, the phone company and the rescheduling of a doctors’ appointment I had to cancel from the week before. In a determined effort to make time stand still, next week I’ll be attempting to organize back to back oil changes for our two cars, read governmentese for some hired work and suffering through my middle son’s root canal.

These joyous activities shall be followed by reorganizing the shelving in the back basement, cleaning out the garage and shepherding my five school attending children through the tedium of a daily math and reading activities. But it isn’t all drudgery, I have a doctor’s appointment first thing in July, and that’s when we should order school books. I wondered if I had stepped into an anti-summer zone, such that I was attempting to fill months usually reserved for reading comic books and drinking lemonade with obligatory studies of statistical analysis and the mandatory eating of a daily grapefruit.

I started considering my summer, and with the prospects of having to repair an air conditioner, my oldest not yet driving but having a job and the recalcitrance of my toddlers with respect to toilet training, the dog days of this year looked like they'd take seven years each.

When did I surrender my soul to the powers that be for the pat on the back for subsisting on broccoli and water from the tap? When did I trade in being the drummer on Rock Band for the docile reward of keeping all the lamp fixtures dust free and well lit? I thought about the dental appointments I needed to make, the bills, the heat and the dullness that seemed not only pervasive but imbedded, I wondered how to shake it. The very nature of all the things that needed to be done, seemed to pile upon each other in a daunting fashion, with tendrils wrapping around all other activities. I felt as though, even if I ordered a snowcone, it would come in the flavor of dutiful novacaine or over cooked vegetables.

It was time to shake things up. I grabbed a CD and cranked up the ABBA.

“Hey Mom, what’s for dinner?” my teen mouthed as he walked upstairs to the kitchen to find a dancing queen mama and three toddlers showing they could jive.

“I don’t know, I’m thinking get everyone in the car and we’ll get shakes.”
“But that’s not dinner.”

“It is today.”

Carpe Diem, or at least Summer!