Well . . . today is Thursday, which makes it the 3rd day I've been home with the kids since school let out for the summer. Since I'm only a year removed from having both kids home full-time it's not a HUGE adjustment for me, but it still is.
I absolutely love the idea of sending the kids outside for several hours to keep themselves entertained. I am a firm believer that my kids need to be bored, they need to come up with their own entertainment and I am not their entertainment director. (As much as my kids would like for me to be, I'm not responsible for making sure they're always entertained)
I say I like the idea of sending them outside with a water bottle, but the reality is we live in Phoenix, AZ and it's insanely HOT here in the summer. Preheat your oven to 350 and keep the oven door closed. Once the oven is preheated open it up and stick your face in front of the door. Walking outside kind of feels like that. When the overnight low is 92 you know it was HOT during the day.
As much as I CRAVE the silence that comes from my kids playing outside by themselves and making up their own fun, I can't send them outside to play in an oven for hours. Bummer. I'm also seriously petrified of desert creatures that slither. I saw one cutting through my backyard about 2 years ago. A month or so ago I found one in my garage. I'm not gonna lie--I'm scared to go in my own backyard.
There will still be outdoor activities (swimming!!!) and "entertain yourself" time each day, but the reality is I need to be creative about how to keep the kids entertained, keep myself from going insane and pass the time inside. Mostly keeping them occupied so I stay sane.
Today I made a few more steps towards my primary goal of remaining sane this summer. I already mentioned my journey into pseudo-homeschooling. (which actually may be the straw that takes the last of my sanity or just proves my sanity is completely gone already). Today I finally bought our passes for Harkins Summer Movie Fun. For $7/person we get tickets to 10 movies so for $21 it's not a bad way to spend a few hours a week. Looking at the schedule I knew we weren't going to go this week, but when I bought my tickets this morning they said we could come tomorrow if we want.
Judging by the yelling and fighting going on today it might be nice to be in a quiet theater for a little while :)
After buying our Summer Movie tickets we went to the library to sign up for their summer reading program. I limited the kids to 3 books each because I didn't want to have to keep track of too many, but promised them we can go almost daily to get new ones if they read the ones they checked out today.
Between swimming, "homeschool", movies and reading I'm thinking we're on our way to finding things to do to keep cool and keep entertained this summer!
Hey! I like this post! The movie program sounds cool! What age did you first take your kids to the movies? Not sure if Nahla is ready yet. Also, Peter Piper's has a program on Tuesdays from 10-12. $5+tax gets each kid pizza, drink, tokens, and a "take home craft."
ReplyDeleteThe movies are cool! I have a bunch of friends who have done the movies at Nahla's age, but the first year I did it was last year when G was 3.
DeleteEven last year was a little hard because we had to get up and leave several times for pit stops. (Of course, they couldn't both go at the same time . . .) Last year we only went to the first few because of my surgery and I already know there are a couple weeks we're not going this year, but for $7/person it's a pretty good deal. You can also just walk up and buy individual day of tickets if there are only one or 2 you're interested in.