Snowed In

Most days, I make sure that we all get out of the house for at least a little bit of time in the morning. It has become part of our routine that I clean up the breakfast mess, I change Buba and Tiny’s diapers, and then we go somewhere. Anywhere. Some days we are fortunate enough to have plans with other kids their age, but most of the time we just run an errand or stroll around the shops in the plaza half a mile from our house.

But today was different. Today it was snowing. And not the beautiful, fluffy, white snow. No, we had to get the wet, wet kind. The kind that you have to look at closely to determine whether it’s actually snow or just rain. Plus, we had someone coming to the house at 11am (an appointment that got cancelled at 11:15 because the person’s car couldn’t make it up the hill to get into our neighborhood). So today, we stayed home.

Now Buba didn’t really seem to care that we weren’t going out, but Tiny knows our routines by heart and it didn’t take her long to figure out what was going on, and subsequently, to begin melting down. The standard toys for everyday play just weren’t cutting it, so I had to get creative. Luckily, I had some things stashed away that totally saved the day…

1: Sunglasses from last summer

Tiny’s glasses no longer had lenses (in fact, I’m pretty sure the lenses popped out the very first time she wore the glasses last June), but she didn’t seem to care. Even as I gave them both their sunglasses, I expected that they would rip them off immediately and then cry for me to put them on again. While that did happen a time or two, I was quite impressed that, for the most part, they enjoyed playing while wearing the glasses for a good 20 minutes. Somehow the glasses made those everyday toys more fun again.

2: Connect Four

This is not something I every would have thought of on my own. But Buba’s occupational therapist has one of these games and uses it to help him improve his fine motor skills. So T brought this one home from his classroom. Tiny loves hearing the plink when the game pieces fall to the bottom, so this was another 20 minutes or so of indoor fun.

3: The Tunnel

We picked this tunnel up at a yard sale over the summer. It’s suppose to connect to a playhut, but the kids have more fun just crawling through the tunnel by itself. It’s only 4 or 5 feet long, so completely doable in our living room. This was also tons of fun for 10 to 15 minutes.

And last, but not least…

4: Snowblowers

We may be the only homeowners on our street who do not own a snowblower. The noise combined with the spraying snow, made it completely fascinating to watch the neighbors snowblow their driveways. And this allowed me just enough time to make lunch.

I certainly hope we don’t have too many inside-all-day days this winter, but it’s nice to know that we can survive (and even have fun!) without getting out of the house.