We are trying once again to rein in the TV. I get lax, and the one hour pre-picked library video or PBS show turns into I don’t want to know how much TV watching, usually while I get my computer fix (or bath). Since the time change, the I’ve made sure the boys get outside in the morning to ride bikes for an hour, so school takes up more time in the afternoon. Nap time goes until 3 by the kitchen timer, but afternoons are still really, really long until Daddy comes home and we can eat dinner. I don’t think we had poison hour in the Summer time, but now that it gets dark at 4:30, poison hour is back. Did I mention that it’s raining too? It isn’t a pleasant, warm rain, it is a pins and needles hard rain like a kid’s first shower when the nozzle angle is set by an adult. The boys did kick a soccer ball back and forth on the front porch this morning, but I feel like my brain has been picked over for now-what-suggestions (rats, they already cleaned their rooms!)
So far this afternoon we’ve painted the wooden kits grandma put in their Easter baskets, opened a science kit that had gathered a lot of dust on top of the refridgerator, listened to some old time radio stories (I know, I know, that’s media to) refurbished the cardboard box rocket ship, and now we have 15min until the pre-picked TV show comes on. My littlest boy can’t tell time. I pulled out a school clock, set it to 5:30, and he has sat for the last 20 min (on and off) comparing it to the workshop clock singing, "Ticking, ticking, ticking we are ticking, ticking, ticking."
So, advice to self: just because something is hard doesn’t mean you are doing a bad job, boredom can be educational, and if your little boy can make up a cute song, his imagination can’t be too rusty.
My littlest one just ran in to ask me when it will be time for "Ruff, Ruff, Fetch" I said, "four more minutes."
"How many is four?"
I held up my fingers and counted them.
"Oh," he replied, "OK, that’s two plus two minutes." and walked off with a rocket ship he’d made from Duplos while he was waiting for the last time announcement.