Today We Are THAT Family is hosting the "Mom, I'm Bored" edition of WFMW, which came not a moment too soon. We are on our third day of summer break, and I've already heard the word "bored" once. (At which point I ever-so-graciously offered the "bored" child a scrub brush and some shower spray and told him of an upstairs shower in need of a 30-minute scrubbing. It's amazing how quickly he became unbored.)
My best boredom-buster is popsicles. You know, the long, skinny ones in the clear plastic wrappers? The ones that are so outrageously cheap that a part of your brain wonders what's in those things, but the rest of your brain says, "Shhh, it keeps them out of the house"?
I supply the popsicle habit for my own kids and half the neighborhood. Command Central is the deep freezer in my garage. Because I would prefer not to have scads of children tracking in and out of my house all day, I've set up a quick way for them to open and dispose of the popsicles outside. I keep an empty grocery sack duct-taped to the front of the freezer, along with a pair of kids' scissors attached with a piece of string.
(I've found that whenever one can inject a little duct tape into one's home-management practices, one ushers in an entirely new level of finery).
The kids are able to get their popsicle, snip off the end, and throw away the plastic (DID YOU HEAR THAT KIDS? I SAID THROW AWAY THE PLASTIC!) all in one place, without tracking the popsicle/sandbox slush into my kitchen. And they're happy. Or, if not happy, they're sugared up, which is pretty much the same thing.
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