Baby Its Snowing Outside

My little WeatherEye started flashing a lightning bolt in the bottom screen of my computer monitor last night so I had warning.   The rain and wind last night and through this morning were pretty intense but since the big rain droplets the temperature has dropped slightly and now has started to snow.  The kids are extremely excited and really want to go out and play in it but at the moment it’s not that nice fluffy play in snow.  It’s that wet gross snow that only comes when the temperature hovers at the 0 degree Celsius (or for my American friends 32 degrees Fahrenheit).  In other words my children are bored and as designated mommy it’s up to me to come up with some activities for the kids to participate in. 

This morning’s activities involved “Art Craft” as my daughter likes to call it.  We decided to paint.  I drug the supplies from the cupboard and basically just let the kids go to town all over some extra-large blank paper.  My daughter could possibly sit there all day and paint, my son however was bored after about 10 minutes.   

 I think that’s one of the toughest things about entertaining the kids right now.  Their interests are completely different, partly I assume because each kid is different but one is a boy and one a girl and then they’re different ages.  The only thing they both seem to enjoy doing at the same time is watching TV. 

The TV is such a topic of discussion these days.  Do you let your kids watch TV?  How much TV do you allow them to watch? What kind of programs do you let them watch?  Before I had children I had it in my head that I was going to be the parent that didn’t allow them to watch any more than an hour a day.  Since I’ve had kids and reality has set in that number has varied quite a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I am attempting to ensure that they don’t spend every waking hour in front of the idiot box.  It’s tough on days like this.  I always have good intentions to utilize my time with them appropriately and try to involve them in several activities.  Then of course when we do things like painting, playing with play-dough, reading books, doing house chores one of them has to be uncooperative.  The only way I get 10 minutes of peace and quiet is to put on the TV and let them zone out while I finish cleaning up after whatever activity it is we just participated in.

We have a giant playroom in the bonus room above the garage.  When I was a kid if I had an area like this that I could run to, that had all my toys and allowed me to use my imagination as much as possible I probably would have lived in it.  My son is very much like me.  He loves going up there and will spend hours driving his cars around the room or his train in circles around the figure 8 wooden track set.  My daughter however spends every waking moment in the room trying to workout plots of getting out of the room and under my feet.   I thought I would solve this problem by allowing my daughter to paint at the table and my son to play in the room.  That of course backfired immediately.  It also turns out when you have a 2 year old and 3 year old you must be accessible to each of them 24/7 and immediately.  No sooner did I get my daughter set up with the paints then my son started to cry in the play room.  I then left my daughter to her own devices as I went to go investigate the tears which turned out to be a minor scratch on his hand and wounded ego which was easily remedied with a kiss and cuddle.  When I went back to see what my dangerously quiet daughter was up to I discovered a mess that would rival The Chernobyl Disaster and then my son began to cry again. 

So there you have it; two kids not capable of doing the same thing or doing anything separately unless you count watching TV.  Playing outside would be another great option but since it’s still really crappy weather out there that might not be for a couple days. 

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I'd like to take this moment to add to the above.  My dad just stopped in for a visit.  I was talking with him about our dilemma about me not being able to entertain the kids without going completely insane.  He came up with a brilliant solution.  Why not bring the toy train set downstairs and let my son play where I can see him while my daughter paints?  My dad's a genius.  Next time I get enough energy to pull out the paints and other activities that he gets bored of immediately I'm going to do just that.  I'll let you know how it goes.