Don't Kid Yourself

...being a mom is a big job. Being an interactive mom is a Full Time job. I am not an especially interactive mom because as I just said, it takes a ton of work. Consequently my children are fairly adept at entertaining themselves...which by the way I believe is an essential skill.

Tinker is sick and has been sick for the past three days. The kind of sickness she has would knock me on my a** and I'd be in bed asleep. If I keep the pain meds coming for her sore throat (she has croup) and a bit for her cough so it doesn't make her sore throat worse, she's being pretty normally active which means she wants to play with friends. I can't find anybody who wants to come over and catch croup from her, so we're on our own (Rachel: this is Charly's official invite :D).  I'm home from work for the the 3rd day in a row and although I'm not necessarily bored, mainly because I don't know the meaning of the word, I have extra time on my hands. I'm feeling bad for her because she's sick and bored so I'm trying to entertain her by playing games with her and helping her with crafts.  This is where this post is headed though...crafts for preschoolers.

HELL. O!  I have spent the better part of 3 days printing, cutting, in short...PREPARING crafts for her little hands to do.  I have cut fabric, riffled through my stickers, scrapbooks, reorganized my miscellaneous craft box looking for pom pons, printed and cut out cardboard glasses, set up and re-moistened watercolors, pulled out and organized beans, macaroni, and an assortment of fall craftable knick knacks.  I am a flurry of preparatory activity to the point that my house is a total wreck, dinner was a joke last night, the dishes are stacking up and my laundry is like, "dude, where'd you go woman?"  But Tink is happily away "doing something fun" while I am her slave to her Pinterest whim. Yes, thank you Pinterest for providing the fuel to our imaginations because otherwise, not only would I be PREPARING, I'd also be LOOKING FOR IDEAS.

This is exactly why I sort of resist entertaining my kids all of the time. All they understand is that they get to do a super fun activity. And the whole time they're following me around the house as I pull all the supplies together, they're driving me crazy because they don't get that it takes me like 3x longer to do THAT part, then it does for them to actually DO the activity. 

Now, maybe while she's still working on these glasses, I'll get the dishes done. MAYBE.