I have a confession to make… I find it way too easy to let my kids watch TV instead of trying to come up with a different activity to do with them every 10-15 minutes. I know that it’s not the best thing for them to be doing and I have somewhat justified it by putting on ‘educational’ shows, though lately that only lasts for one show before they are asking for Caillou or some other mindless cartoon. When the first thing they ask for when they wake up is a ‘show’, I know that we’ve been watching way too much. So, with that in mind, I decided that today would be a NO TV/show day.
Initially with was pretty easy to re-direct them and get them to eat breakfast instead. Then we got dressed and I pulled out the nail polish. Emma was thrilled! She requested sparkles, so we got out the purple nail polish and went to town. She was so proud of herself (and it looked really cute too!). We then painted her toenails, which just added to the excitement. As soon as she was done, then Ben proclaimed that it was his turn! I didn’t think that Lennard would be too excited to see purple nail polish on his little boy, so we compromised and he got clear nail polish. Thankfully he wasn’t too disappointed that it wasn’t purple. If you ask him what color his nails are he says, “Green!”.
Then I had to come up with something else… playdough! I whipped up a batch of playdough and they each got to pick their own colors for their playdough. Emma picked pink (big surprise) and Ben got green (are you sensing a theme?). I pulled out all the playdough toys and they went to town for at least a half hour! It was great!
After playdough we had a rousing game of Candyland (Dora version). Emma did really well and caught on to what she was supposed to do. Ben was just concerned about his ‘cards’. We then put on music and Emma and I danced around the family room while Ben rocked out on his Elmo guitar (It was quite the sight). I set up the train table and they played with that while I worked on finishing a scrapbook page and sewed a bit on my sampler quilt. Emma made me a pretend lunch and Ben went shopping with the shopping cart. They then played with puzzles while I got lunch ready.
Just hanging out having a pre-lunch snack of bread & butter
It was such a good day for not having screaming/temper tantrums/etc. I was tired by the end of lunch and could have easily crashed when they finally went down for naps, but I managed to get some laundry through and read a bit of “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo.
When Lennard got home, we headed out to Lethbridge and got a bunch of odds and ends done. We stopped at El Dorado and got stuff for the trailer and then popped in to visit Dave & Nysha and cuddle baby Will for the first time (he was born on Monday, the 18th)! What a little chubster! He’s adorable! We had an interesting dinner at the Regent. The food was delicious, but Emma thought it was a good idea to provide entertainment for the rest of the patrons. At random points in the dinner she would start singing (rather loudly) “We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet” or “I am a Child of God”. (At least we know she is learning something from Primary). Once she put on a few encores, we managed leave and make stops at Canadian Tire (more trailer stuff) and Costco (spent way too much). We didn’t get home until about 9:00 and while Ben fell asleep, Emma sang, cried, screamed, cried, etc. all the way home. We were very glad to pull into the garage! We can definitely say life is anything but dull!
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