Time to Play

Ah, blessed Friday - day in which small boys attend PDO and preschool from 9 to 3! My window of fresh air. My limited walk in the sunshine of the courtyard, during my prison term of stay-at-home motherhood.

Okay, okay. It is not as bad as all that, but still, I do LOVE my Fridays. Yet, somehow I always feel this deep sense of obligation to make the time count. Since cleaning up is so difficult while they are steadily working to destroy another section of the house, it behooves me to clean like a whirling dervish while they are away. OR NOT! Usually it is not, but I do carry the guilt.

Today, I had a doctor appointment at 10, with a blood draw to check my cholesterol. By the time I returned to the house at 11 it was almost lunch time, so (despite the fact that my mil will be visiting our house ... er, I mean her house ... on Wednesday) I decided to PLAY.

There are so many things I want to learn how to do on the computer and with my blog. But, in the evenings, by the time the boys have finally finished their bathroom rounds and managed that most-difficult task of falling asleep, I spend my time taking care of "my work." This includes things like finishing up the supper dishes, checking my mail, looking in on Facebook, and writing blog posts. If I took the time to dally with "what my computer can really do..." I might never get to bed and anyone can tell you that I don't function well if I don't get enough sleep.

I was wanting to figure out how to delete my son's name (an identifying factor my husband won't allow on my blog) from that photo of his burn project so I could include it in yesterday's post. I spent most of the day fooling around with FotoFlexer, a free photo editing site on-line. Believe me, this kind of play could suck me into a black hole (time-wise). It was tremendously fun, even though my first attempts (I was trying to cut out the space where his name appeared) continued to fail. In the end, I settled for drawing a line of black through the name, which worked just fine.

Now, I don't want to give the impression that I never play, but other play usually occurs WHILE I am keeping an eye on the boys. I'm sure some would voice the opinion that I'm not exactly the hardest worker on the block. Of course, saying this wouldn't injure quite so much if the only other two individuals on our block weren't retired.

For example, I have been frittering away time playing at making a puzzle that Santa brought for MS for Christmas. I don't know what that old guy was thinking! If you ask me, he's got a few too many on his list. He brought MS a 550 piece snake puzzle that is clearly marked "Ages 12 and up!" Although I tried to help him with the puzzle, it became clear early on that I would be completing the puzzle and he would help put in the last 6 or 7 pieces.

At first, I couldn't figure out why the puzzle was causing me such difficulty (it seemed to have plenty of variations in colors, etc.) I was continually turning the lamp on the table downstairs up higher and even dragging over other lamps. Finally, it dawned on me. I'm not 20 anymore! Apparently, I need those glasses for more than just reading. Once I donned them, things moved along at a better clip.

Perhaps I did get a bit too engrossed in the play of the puzzle. At one point, while I was working and the boys were playing just 6 or 8 feet away from me, I looked up to discover that they had very quietly been standing next to the mouse cage and filling it almost to the top with extra cedar shaving bedding. The mice had already looked up to discover that with greater levels of bedding, chances of escape were greatly improved.

At another point, they had been tossing bouncy balls across the room and disappeared into the other section of the basement. This is where we stack all the garage sale fodder (steadily taking over the basement), ES's drums, and hubby's office and exercise spaces. Alas, it also leads to a small room where the utility equipment and extra freezer are housed.

I pulled myself away from the puzzle too late. They had climbed a pile of salt bags, taken the lid off of the water softener, and thrown salt all over the floor. A few days later, hubby discovered that they had gone a step further than we had realized. They had apparently also unplugged the water softener (our well water is very hard and we began to notice an odor). Yes, I think it is clear, they love to play just as much as I do!

So, tonight after enjoying my day playing around with photos, I decided we would play at dinner preparation. I asked the boys if they would like to have octopuses swimming in blood for dinner (thanks to Megan at Plum Pudding blog for the interesting suggestion). When MS asked how I would make that, I decided to include them in the process.

We chopped up our hot dogs, poked them through with linguine noodles (we discovered that thin spaghetti noodles break too easily while trying to poke them in), and boiled them for 7 minutes. The boys had a blast, even if the hot dogs did look a bit more like porcupines than octopuses.




Can you believe that after all that fun/work, YS proceeded to de-tentacle our fine octopuses and eat the hot dogs plain (the way they normally enjoy them)? It didn't take long before MS was eating them minus the noodles as well. Octopuses and blood ARE cool, just not cool enough to eat. So, a clever idea and great fun to work on together in the kitchen, but not on our menu again in the near future, except if we're merely in the mood to play, which happens now and again.