Phew. Just made it through an entire weekend -- well, Thursday afternoon through today -- on my own with the girls, temperatures outside in the 20s, without going insane.
Knowing Alastair was going to be away, that the weather was not going to be outdoor-activity-friendly, and that I was fighting a cold and a potential backslide into depression (I won on both fronts -- Yahoo!) I planned out the whole weekend ahead of time. I lined up a trip to our local family network's drop-in playgroup, a playdate, a birthday party, a few hours of sitter time, and a friend over for takeout and a movie one of the evenings. It may sound a little anal and ridiculous, but I've decided that planning really is key to not going nutso over the weekends, especially when the weather sucks, and double-especially when Alastair is away. Structure, structure, structure!
I also created a new indoor "toy" for the gals, inspired by some of the suggestions you offered up in response to one of my posts from last week: the Bean Box. It is, as you might suspect, a box full of dried beans (I know; clever name, right? I'm a writer and stuff.) It's something of a variation on the indoor sandbox idea, except it doesn't take up as much room, and can be put away when playtime is over. Here's what you do: take a shallow box of some sort and put it on the kitchen floor, dump a few bags of dried beans into it (I used chick peas, kidney beans and intriguingly speckled Romas), add bowls, shovels, scoops and other containers, and you've got yourself at least a half hour's worth of toddler-tainment.
(A wine case for all seasons: it has served as toy box, stepping stool for the girls' climbing structure, and now -- the Bean Box.)
Bonus: only minimal parental involvement is required with the Bean Box (tm). I played with the girls for a little while, showing them how to scoop the beans into bowls, pour them from one bowl to another, etc. but they were just as happy to sit and play on their own. I just occasionally intervened when there were getting to be more beans on the floor than in the box.
That's the one drawback of this activity: It's kinda messy. But in a relatively clean way. You just sweep the beans up, along with whatever else is on your kitchen floor, dump 'em back into the box, and go back to your magazine or your cup of coffee or your Facebook account or whatever.
If the box is big enough, your kids can also play "bath" in it, as demonstrated by Elsa, below.
The Bean Box (tm), if nothing else, is pretty sound evidence that I am out of my depression. A few weeks ago, I would never have had the motivation or creative capacity to do even something as basic as this. Or, if I had done it (which I wouldn't have), it would have felt like a miserable and exhausting trial: I have to go to the STORE to buy beans? And then figure out what to put them in? And then...ugh...CLEAN THEM UP? The very thought of it would have nauseated me.
But in reality, I am totally the kind of person who would cheerfully whip up a Bean Box (tm) for her kids, and reap satisfaction from its success, as I am doing now. It's great to feel like that person again.
