Leave Them Alone

    Here's the set up...I've been out of town for 3 weeks, celebrating the holidays and then helping my parents as my dad recovered from surgery. I come home late on Friday, spend the weekend doing laundry and cleaning the house. My first full day back to work is Monday...a school holiday. In addition to it being a day off for my girls, we're having the boys we carpool with over for the day since both their parents have to work. So, it could be a recipe for success or just as easily a recipe for failure. To prepare for the day, I worked over the weekend and checked out open play hours at a local bounce house joint. My plan was to let the kids play for a bit, watch some TV and then off to bounce.

    As I write this post, we are three hours into the day and I've been working for three hours! How did it happen? Because I didn't give the kids enough credit that they would be entertained by just playing! With the unstructured time, they've been busily working on a giant spider web that takes up the entire basement. Tori did the project at a school party and got them all involved in the fun at home. Not once have I heard, "I'm bored" or "there's nothing to do". A great reminder for me...kids need and benefit from daily, unstructured, play time.