Having 2 boys who are far happier playing outside than anything else can be quite challenging during our VERY wet Waikato winter season. Now this morning, like most mornings, I am woken LOUDLY… before 6.30am! Something I am yet to get used to even after almost 3 years! Low & behold, it’s raining. Combine this with a large dose of pushing, shoving, pulling & yelling at each other and this mama was ready to hit the bottle (and before anyone calls CYFS on me, I don’t actually drink during the day,in fact I don’t usually drink unless there is a celebration of some sort. So put that phone down!)
Now usually, while I am trying desperately to pull myself together in the morning, I allow the boys to watch a little TV, yes TV!!!Shocking I know, who lets their kids watch TV EVER?! *snigger* But it works for us me & keeps me sane…I am NOT a morning person. Today was no different, what with the rain & darkness I even allowed them a few extra minutes. So by the time we were all presentable(I use the term presentable loosely,as long as we are dressed in our own clothes & our teeth are brushed I deem us presentable, albeit only to each other) and breakfast dishes were washed, laundry in the machine & beds made it was gone 8am. Wait, WHAT?you mean I’ve only been awake for 1.5 hrs!It feels like lunch time already!Never fear, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for such an occasion…rainbow rice & coloured pasta!In a large plastic tub so as to try & keep it as contained as possible, add cars & away we go!
Master 2 preferred to line up all the cars & skid them through the rice to the other side of the tub AND REPEAT. As this was only the 3rd time I have had this out for them to play with, it was still new & exciting. Master 1 wasn’t really allowed near as Master 2 was intent on doing things his way but he did get close enough to scatter the above cars numerous times & then to try eating the rice before spitting it out again. Which he thought was h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s (such a boy thing I’m sure) They did keep coming back to this one during the rest of the morning before the weather brightened & I put it outside…
It was inevitable that throwing the rice at each other would happen sooner or later..
The resulting mess although the photo doesn’t do it justice…
Don’t worry mama, we’ll tidy up…
Before this lovely mess, we still had to fill in a few hours so out came the stickers WOOHOO…I had planned on doing a collage with all sorts of other art supplies but master 1 was not interested at all, content to just sit on my lap & watch. Master 2 was only interested in pealing off every single sticker & randomly slapping them down on the piece of paper I managed to whip underneath his hands before the table wore them all. I gave up the structure & just let him have a ball. I figured it was probably good for fine motor skills anyway(as well as sorting, he chose to put alike stickers together…mostly) and HE WAS QUIET. Simple yet effective.
Master 1 did have a go with playdough & a car before he started eating it & I wasn’t so much up for a nappy full of blue(been there done that enough times already, turns out blue paint can come out for days too) Drawing got a mere 5minutes ,as did reading ,before it was rejected& time for me to dig deep….masking tape roads & duplo garages!I tell you what, I was one popular mama for that one! As you can see it was rather a crude design but they don’t know any different & it only took me a couple of minutes to set up…
Needless to say, Master 1 did destroy the above ‘garage’ numerous times which earned him a growling from Master 2. He is a bit of a stealth bomber my Master 1…comes out of nowhere to smash/scatter & then high-tales it out of the way before anyone realises he was even in the room!Highly effective but a constant annoyance for his brother. And with that the game was over. Add the time we took for morning tea(aka morning snack to the rest of the world) and we had filled 2.5hours.
It wasn’t all without incident though, Master 2 managed to knock over his cup of Rooibos tea which trickled down the side of the table that is against the wall & all over the floor. Had to pull out a few chairs & crawl under to wipe up all the mess. Note to self…move the table next time!I did find a few toys that had been missing though and more dust than you can imagine…oops, seems the hoover doesn’t reach as far into the recesses as I thought. No pictures of that evidence of course!
Hubby had requested “something sweet” as a treat for himself so trawled the cook books (all 3 of them mind you) while the boys had a run around outside & decided on caramel square(I’ll post about that once hubby has tasted it). Only had 3/4s of the ingredients so a quick dash to the shops, followed by lunch & it was suddenly nap time. A successful morning I’d say!Hubby’s home early on a Friday so I reckon it’s his turn to entertain the boys for an hour(or 2 if i have my way) while i treat myself to my first, second third coffee of the day
Now, what to have for tea (that’s dinner to the rest of you)…..
AfricanKiwi 