Entertaining my kids during the witching hour(s)

Often in the afternoon I pick the kiddies up from their respective daycare/school and wonder how I am going to fill the time until dinner time. This NEVER ends up being a problem. It seems like, by the time I have answered questions about every single aspect of every single event in known history, my brain has begun to shut itself down, and suddenly it is dinner time.

Aaaahhh dinner time. Usually the kids have tried to gnaw their own arms off by the time 5 o’clock rolls up. I have fended off five million arguments, and diplomatically avoided impending fisticuffs.

The other day though, we were wandering aimlessly around the block (to build the appetite back up after I accidentally gave in to their constant demands for pre dinner snacks) and we found this totally sweet pile of cardboard boxes at the base of the hill.

Simple, simplest of pleasures. A dry slope and a cardboard box.

What a way to keep the kids calm until dinner time, and ensure they were exhausted by bedtime.Suburbia. My old friend.

And then if that wasn’t enough, I forced them to climb the rest of the way up the hill. Being an adult is awesome!See those specks? They mah babies. Climbing without too much complaint. Oh, no, wait. Heeeaps of complaint.

.m.

I wish I was a Gentle Person

Photo of my son. It looks like he will become one of the Gentle People.

This is a real thought in my head. When I was growing up, I knew a Gentle Person. Actually, my own father is pretty close to being one himself. You may know one of these Gentle People. The type that will take ten minutes to make a proper, perfect cup of tea, rather than the insipid cup of milky water you are likely to get given in my house (apologies family and friends).

The type that (don’t read this if you are squeamish) fold, nay, IRON their clothes so that they are flat and sit level in their drawers. I am ashamed to say that my folding ability is lacklustre, to say the least. I have more of a rolling action with the washing. Bundling things into piles, then looking on furiously as the piles topple over at the merest provocation. The drawers in our house are a barely contained maelstrom, I actually sometimes have to kick the drawers shut, and once with my fingers enclosed trying to force in some stray bit of shirt or pant leg.

These gentle people are truly a joy to watch, even if sometimes you want to hurry them up. You want to scribble over the borders they have lovingly given their assignments, the ruled, squared off, triple checked documents they will inevitably hand in for marking. Gentle People excelled at bubble writing in primary school, they also always have neat tidy haircuts, and never the double crown/cowlick I grew up trying to reign in.

Ah, I wish I was a Gentle Person, instead of the weird juxtaposition that I actually am. Slightly perfectionist with a healthy dash of complete feral.

Aaaaand, here is a completely irrelevant photo of the hill behind our house.

It’s lovely.As is my wee daughter (most of the time.) Excuse the photo, it was dusk.Although, I suspect, like me, she will not be a gentle person, this makes her no less lovely.

.m.