Friday, December 4, 2009

Where's my cover?!?!

Slept less than 4 hours (in spats of 1 hour, 1 hour, and 2 hours while Austin was screaming. That's max, obviously. WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT KID?!?!?) last night so I sure could have used some "cover" today to give me a break. NO GO.

So now I'm turning to you all! Now that it is dark before dinner here, we are stuck inside with "nothing to do" after dinner and before bedtime. On days when Hubs works (swing shift), I think at the end of the night that everyone is lucky to still be alive because we didn't kill each other. ;)

So cover me, peoples. What do you do to pass the time with your crazy small kids (and screaming baby) before bedtime?!!? argh!!! I'm going to go crazy!!

5 comments:

OrdinaryLife said...

I hate it too that it gets dark so early! My little one is 17 months. We eat dinner about 6pm, she takes a bath right after. Then we watch 1 episode of Dora and then read some books. We might sneak some coloring in too. I try to do all "calm down" activities. And then she goes to bed at 8pm. Good luck!! :)

Meadowlark said...

Paper chains with pre-cut strips? I guess I was never very craft-y.

Or play the let's all lay in bed and see how quiet we can be for the longest... doesn't accomplish much but at least it's quiet.

Good luck. Sorry for your stress overload. :(

mrs. fuzz said...

Oh gosh. The story of my life. Seriously, it's crazy and random all the time! You are not alone for sure. It seems like what works one day doesn't work another. I'll tell you some things I've tried though.

-reading books and making up stories
-baking together
-arts and crafts.
-having a theme for the day (I'll email you -something in the next day or two about that if you want)
-music that has the kids act stuff out.
-chores (helping sort colors, letting them be in charge of planning a meal or putting dishes away or setting tables, etc.)
-indoor camping or fort building

But it's lucky if any of them work. I do try to make things stretch after dinner though. I make them have a few minutes of quiet time on their own after they eat and then have them choose their pajamas and get ready for a bath and one of them will play with the baby while the other one is in the shower, then we choose books for bed, etc. One thing they are loving right now is we try and make a special drink after they've gotten ready for bed. Like a fruit smoothie or hot chocolate or something.

PLEASE SHARE IF YOU COME UP WITH SOMETHING THAT WORKS! :)

KD said...

So far the thing that works the best is popcorn and movie night. I stretch out the making of the air popped popcorn as long as possible and play a movie. The problem is I hate resorting to Little Einsteins, VeggieTales, and Pixar to babysit my kids. ugh.

Meadowlark, we play that "get in bed and be quiet" game ;) it's called quiet reading time and sometimes I get it started up to a full hour before lights out, ha ha!! Sometimes it degenerates as #1 and #2 are in the same room together, but at least they aren't killing each other.

Mrs. Fuzz, PLEASE email me your theme idea. Also what kind (artists and/or titles) of music do you know of that has the kids act stuff out?

Unfortunately by this time I almost don't even have the energy to supervise chore work....... ugh, but I think what I'm sensing is that I'm going to have to kick it up a notch in the supervisory department if I want it to be a moderately successful evening! yikes.... :/

firefighter / paramedic said...

The boy is 4 1/2 and until recently a few short books was the trick. All of a sudden he has been staying up for hours post tuck in. Is it winter? Either way, We feel your pain.