Rainy Days

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a princess named Staci loved rainy days..... The pound on the roof was relaxing. A stack of books was just waiting to be attacked, and an old quilt on the couch called her name when the dark clouds rained down on her land. Oh, that was a land far, far away...... Now I have a love/ hate relationship with the rain. I still love to hear it hit the roof, as I go to sleep. I would still love to hunker down on the couch with a quilt, cup of tea, and lots of books on my lap as the rain falls outside. It's funny though. Sam and Jack don't have the same agenda on rainy days. So, now the idea of spending an entire rainy day inside doesn't inspire the same relaxing, comforting images. Instead I start to panic a little bit. No walks! No feeding the fishies! No playground! No bike rides! Those 4 walls start to close in pretty quickly on this kind of day. I mean how many forts can you build in the basement? How many times can you play Memory and stay sane? There is a limit to the number of Curious George books you can read at one sitting (not my idea of entertaining literature). Well, with the new year begun, and my resolve to "play more" and engage more patiently, we got rolling. For the record, we did not stay in our pajamas all day. We put clothes on well before lunch time (I think).


We got out the paints that I've been putting off opening because, well, I didn't want to deal with the mess. What fun is that? So, we painted (mostly) on paper, a little on the kitchen floor, and then on our hands to make hand prints. I know. We are living large now! I did draw the line at footprints because, well, because I'm the mommy, and I said so.

After the painting, we had a car wash (modified from the "giving the baby doll a bath" activity- Thanks Erin or Kelli- I'm not sure whose idea it was first). I filled a plastic drawer from a Rubbermaid container with water and bubble bath, and the boys each found their favorite match box cars and went to town. They each got their own "rinsing tub" to get rid of the bubbles and old cloth diapers to dry the cars.

You may notice Sam has bubbles on his face. Clearly he thought "bobbing for match box cars" should be the next activity.

A good time was had by all. The soapy water that sloshed out of the tub served to wash the wayward paint off of the kitchen floor (that counts as housework right?). I thought we had exhausted our water activities, so I went to get some towels to clean up and dry the floor. This is what I found........

The sheepish face says it all. I think when he's about 12 he'll be mortified that this picture exists!

So at the end of the rainy day, we were all still standing. We had created and destroyed and played and even read a little bit. I know what you're thinking. "How did she do all those fun things AND go the grocery store AND run errands, AND clean her house AND have a hot, nutritious meal on the table at 6:00 sharp AND get on her lipstick and high heels before she greeted her husband at the door?" Well, here's what I have figured out whether I'm at work or working at home. You can have it all. You can do it all. You just can't have it all, and you sure can't do it all, all at the same time. So here's what I didn't have at the end of this day. I didn't have a clean house. I didn't have a meal prepared with representatives from all four food groups. I didn't have half a grown-up book read. But here's the upside. I did have fun with 2 pretty great kids.