A friend is getting married. Her caterer cancelled due to illness a week before the wedding. My sister-in-law stepped in to do the catering, and another friend volunteered a day to help her prep the food today. She called me, and the upshot is that I had 7 children at my house (not including unborn son) from 9 ’til 3 today! ”What are we doing to do all day,” I wondered? True, my friends two older daughters did a lot of the work, including playing very nicely with Monica and teaching her how to play with dolls, but the fact is that we still probably needed to DO something. So here’s what we did:
- Free Play
- Listened to kids game songs (ex: The Farmer in the Dell) while the four boys ran around in circles in the living room.
- Played with Bubber
- Kids played outside – they whacked off the heads of dandelions with sticks and imaginary games.
- Fed kids a snack.
- Played outside more.
- Fed kids lunch (sandwiches, fruit, juice, and cookies)
- Kids built fort in bunk beds
- Kids got out construction paper, stickers, staples, glue, etc. and made crowns, books, etc.
- Went to the park for the last hour (brought granola bars and water) and got home less than 10 minutes before their mom showed up to claim them.
All in all, it sent pretty slick, I thought. The house is still standing and I had the kids clean up the messes as they made them, so it’s not even in shambles. And during that time I made 4 loves of bread and a double batch of granola and even got to lay down for 10 minutes or so. (thanks to the two older daughters!) So, all’s well that ends well – now to prepare for a big weekend!