Stay Home Day.

Today was my day off.  Strangely enough, it was my third in a row.  Having accomplished errands on Saturday and cleaned the house on Sunday, today was a day free from chores or tasks to accomplish.  Today, Biggest had off from school for Martin Luther King Day.  And being it was a wind-chill of 25 degrees below zero, I had the crazy idea to keep Littlest home from daycare today too.  So it was just me and the kidlets, trapped inside a house by dangerously cold weather.  What were we going to do?

Let’s be honest.  I am not one of those moms who has a bag full of tricks to keep the kids entertained.  My sister in law, for example, can somehow manage to wrangle not only her two boys, but my two girls and keep them entertained for hours with activities like painting birdhouses, going to pumpkin patches (3 in one day…), or making home made ice cream for sundaes.  It makes my head spin what she can do with our kids. I am just happy if I don’t have to resort to yelling more than a few times in one day.

So today, we had a jammie day.  I agreed to let the kidlets have a Disney movie fest.  I ordered pizza for lunch, mostly because I really, really wanted a pop and was not willing to leave the house, especially with two kids in tow, in these frigid temps.  But the part of the day that made me the most proud?  We actually did a craft.

For Christmas, my other sister in law gave the kidlets a big pile of crafting kits.  We got Shrinky Dinks, painting activities, princess crown kits, you name it. I am pretty sure I threatened to send the kidlets to her house for the weekend with every single craft kit, ready to play.  Hubby is much better with these types of activities than I am.  All I see is the mess waiting to happen, whereas he sees the entertainment for him and the kids.   Yes, I know, I should see the memories not the mess but that is not how I am hard wired. So today, when Biggest dragged out the plaster magnet painting kit, I tried not to panic. 

I ignored the visions of the girls smearing paint all over my floors, the kitchen table, themselves, the dogs…and just put down paper and let them go at it.  The girls had a blast.  They painted all their magnets in harmony, even mostly agreeing who got to paint what magnet.   Biggest even attempted to paint a special magnet for me, although she miscalculated the amount of space she had to write out “Mom” in black paint.  I may be referred to as Mo from here on out.

Their behavior was so astonishing.  It is like they knew I was nervous and put forth the effort to keep things under control. Or maybe they are always like that….nah, I doubt it. I think I caught them on a rare, well behaved day.  Or maybe the body snatchers finally got them.

In the end, we all won.  The girls got to have fun and paint their magnets.  I got to keep my house clean and enjoy the memories.  I even have some souvenirs to remember the day by!