Cabin Fever

Okay, I'm going to admit something embarrassing here, because...well, because I don't have any other great ideas for a blog post right now but I am feeling the urge to blog. I really, really want to be a stay-at-home mom (no, that's not the embarrassing part), but I am a bit scared too. Why, you ask? No, not the we're-quickly-running-out-of-money possibility, or the I'm-up-to-my-elbows-in-poop...again inevitablity, or even the I've-been-speaking-in-baby-language-so-long-I-don't-even-remember-words-that-actually-show-up-in-the-dictionary scenario. Nope, I'm mostly scared of the what-the-....-are-we-going-to-do-today and the I-must-be-a-bad-mom-if-I-let-my-three-year-old-watch-17-hours-of-TV-daily scenarios.

Right now, my weekends home with my kids are so packed because they are spent doing all the crap I don't have the energy to do mid-week, like go grocery shopping or cleaning the house. By the time I pick the kids up from the babysitters mid-week, I have just enough time to go home, make and eat dinner, and get the kids ready for bed, and then they're down for the night. There's no limit (exaggeration, I know) to the things that I can do to occupy myself, but how the heck do you occupy a three-year-old for hours and hours? I swear, they need an internship for something like this, where you can go to another mom's house (one with young kids at home) and watch all the creative and fun activities she does every day with her toddler. Or, maybe there's a book out there that's got good ideas, but not one of those thousands of books that says things like, "Play jacks" or "Push a big metal hoop with a stick and run after it."

I need to start compiling my own book of fun activities for young children living in hel...er, Utah...where you can't go outside for months on end without fear of losing trivials like toes. So, here are a few ideas I have, and I would LOVE any comments from others out there. This blog post will come in handy whenever I am able to finally be a stay-at-home mom.

* Finger paint - make as big a mess as possible
* Hide and seek in the house (or outside, if weather permits)
* Invite a neighbor kid over to play
* Make cookies, bread, or something else whimsical that the kiddos can mostly do (or decorate) themselves
* Color
* Go for a bike ride
* Walk the dog (because we WILL have a dog someday, dang it, and he'll love to go on walks to 7-11 just like my Scooter did before he got old and we all moved away)
* Write a letter to Grandma and Grandpa

That's pretty much all my ideas. So, I'm guessing you can see now why I'm so freaked out about being responsible for providing hours upon hours of entertainment. For those who have young kids, had young kids at one point, who hope to have young kids, or who just have great ideas, what else can I do with my kids to keep them entertained???